#the right way to learn how to animate: animate a bouncing ball or a flower sack

[arrowpunk]

My hubris will be my downfall

[kitkat1003]

Who Are You Really?

Chapter 3: To Mold; To Raise One

Summary: 

They should know, he thinks, that things like them aren’t picked. The warrior was forgotten by the hero. By everyone. And Macaque? He is going to make them into a tool for a warrior, a warrior themself even, whether they like it or not.

Spirit Masterpost

If he had to say anything on the matter, he would have said they’re useful.

It hadn’t taken much, not really.  He finds them in the woods, alone with nothing to their name but whispers of favors to powerful people and three eyes that stare through you.  He finds them, appraises them, and despite the way their tail curls around their leg and despite the way they hunch down on themself, something is there.  A little broken, but there.

Like a memory of a debt owed, Macaque knows he can fix them and is willing to try.

Convincing them isn’t difficult.  They perk up at the word favor, ears pressed up against the sides of their head and their eyes wide and earnest.  Desperate for a use, excited to have purpose—he dangles it in front of them and pulls them in.

There were more than a few roadblocks.

There is the anxiety, of course.  Kid barely can stand the sight of their own shadow, much less the ones he can summon at the drop of a hat.  He gets them used to the clones soon enough.  Exposure works wonders, and if they don’t like it at first?  Tough.  The clones are a part of him, he says  It wasn’t as if he could just get rid of them because they don’t like them.

A well placed guilt trip, and Kid stumbles over themselves to fix their error.  Good.

They’re soft.  Gentle.  Caring for all the other living creatures almost to the point of those being above their own needs and wants.  Careful of pretty flowers they don’t want to step on, kind to the trees and grass as much as one can be.

Wide eyed, but not doe eyed.  Their eyes are something, though.

It’s interesting to watch the large pupil move, the smaller two following.  They bounce around like ping pong balls, always taking in every detail.  When they wink, they either close the large one, or the two smaller ones.  Sometimes, when they’re trying to focus on something, they’ll close one of the smaller eyes.

“My vision’s a little lopsided,” they admit, when he questions.  “It, uh, can make things blurry.”

Not doe eyed, he knows, when he looks at them.  The furtive way they glance around.  They look at dead animals far too long to be normal.  Stare wistfully out at human settlements.  And when they’re not looking at anything, their eyes look...tired.  Empty.

Haunted, even.

Guess they call themselves Spirit for a reason.

It takes a while to teach them to stop caring about the petals you ruin in your walk, to crush bugs underfoot without thought.  It would go faster if he taught them the hard way, with broken bones and bloodied fists, but breaking more than they already are serves no purpose.  Beyond it all, Macaque wants a tool to use, and a tool shattered beyond repair isn’t useful.  So he has to be patient about it.

Of course, his patience runs out sometimes, but they never complain.  Maybe he gets used to yelling.  It shuts them up real quick, so it works.

Training them is another matter.  As much as he wants to beat all of the lessons he’d learned into them, he has to be patient.  A warrior isn’t made on the first day, there’s a process.  And they’re flighty, too.  One wrong move and they might run away.  Sure, he knew they’d come back, like a dog on a leash whenever the word favor was involved, but waiting would add more time to the process.

So he takes things slow.  Somehow.

They have stamina.  Running and jumping through forests day by day leaves them lithe and lean when it comes to muscles.  They tower over him even when they bend over; they are always bent over.  He forces them to stand up straight, just to get a measure of their height, and they loom like a tree in the forests surrounding them.

A good foundation, but their stance is so easily toppable that he barely has to push them and they stumble back, falling to the ground.

So he starts there.

“You need to be unmovable,” he says, using a stick found in the woods to prod at their limbs until they’re in the right position.  “Rooted to the ground.”

“Like a flower?” they reply, turning their head around to look at him.

He smacks them on the side of the head with the stick for that.

“Like a tree,” he corrects.  “Do you have any idea how easy it is to pick a flower?”

He hears them mutter about how they think it wouldn’t be too bad to be picked, but they correct their stance and go silent before he can bark at them to be quiet.

They should know, he thinks, that things like them aren’t picked.

The warrior was forgotten by the hero.

By everyone.

And Macaque?

He is going to make them into a tool for a warrior, a warrior themself even, whether they like it or not.

Once their stance is steady, he teaches them self defense.  How to punch without breaking your fingers.  How to kick without losing your balance.  How to dodge, duck, strike.

Kid takes to it like a duck to water, with a few hiccups.  The largest of which is a lack of want to land a hit.

Oh, they’re plenty strong.  They can lift up half a tree’s worth of firewood with a bit of strain.  They could likely kick harder than they punch, with how much they run, but to get them to do either is an uphill battle.

“C’mon kid, hit me,” he says, gesturing to his chest.

They pale, shoulders hunched, fingers rubbing against each other awkwardly as they keep them from becoming a fist.

“But-why?  I don’t want to, uh, hurt you.” They frown at the thought.

Macaque laughs.

“You can’t hurt me, trust me.  I’ve been hit by bigger and stronger people than you, kid,” he gives them a half grin and snorts at the thought of them being able to hit that hard.

“I don’t…” They draw circles in the dirt with their toe, glancing between him and their feet.  “I don’t like hurting people.”

He sighs, long suffering.  “You have someone you want to protect?” he asks.

They blink a few times.  He watches their pupils dilate, shifting as they think.  They don’t have the best poker face, but when they want to hide something, their face becomes carefully blank, a slate wiped clean.

It’s kind of creepy, in a way.

“Not anymore,” they finally mutter, forlorn.  Ears downturned.

There’s something deeper there, but Macaque doesn’t have time to hear their life’s story.  Especially when they’re training.  

“Yeah, you do have someone.” He walks over and sticks his finger into their chest, poking them hard enough that they wince.  “You.  You want to stay alive?  You fight.”

They stare at him, hard, and he raises a brow.

“Look,” he says.  “You hate anyone?”

Kid glances down at him—he hates that they’re taller than him, even when they’re hunched down—and their gaze flashes to something dark.

He stares back.

“Yes,” they whisper.  “Some.  One.”

Macaque does not stiffen.  There’s nothing haunting about how quietly, how gently, how angrily Kid says that.

“Alright then,” he takes a step back, arms splayed out to make himself a target.  “Hit me like I’m that person.”

He watches them stare at him.  They tilt their head to the side.  Their pupils shift.

A minute passes, and Macaque is about to say something else, when they blink once, and then strike.

His clothes are ripped, a slash across his chest.  Kid holds their hand out like it’s a weapon, claws bared.  They took off some fur, too, but they didn’t go deep enough to break skin, though Macaque thinks it’s not for lack of trying.

Another blink, and they come to, yanking their hand back and cradling it against their chest.

“Oh-sorry-I-I was just doing what you told me, and, uh, I didn’t,” they mutter out more apologies, looking away.

Macaque laughs.

“No, no, that was great!  We’ll have to get you used to punching and kicking, but using claws ain’t half bad.” He looks them up and down, seeing them in a new light.  “If you like something sharp, then, well, we might as well get you a weapon, right?”

“A...weapon?” They look surprised that he’s not upset.  

Macaque only yells when they make a mistake, though.  And when they’re being annoying, but regardless.  Why punish them for a job well done?  He told them to hit him, and they did.  Not exactly how he wanted, but as long as they’re more willing to fight, he wants to encourage the behavior.  An inch of negativity towards them and they’ll jump a mile back from where he wants them to be.

“Something sharp,” he repeats.  “Claws will only get you so far.”

He pulls out his staff, twirling it around a few times before holding it out, sideways, for the kid to look at.  They peer down at it, tilting their head to the side.  They close one of their eyes, to focus.  Their eyes trace the spikes on the ends of the staff.  They swallow, fidgeting, as their gaze ends at the sharp points.

“It’s...nice,” they say, a little nervous.

“We should go to a market.  I’ve got a bunch of weapons we can test out, but your weapon has to be for you.” He pats the kid on the back, smiling.

“Shopping?” 

He watches them perk up, eyes wide, a smile on their lips.  There’s a certain charm to it.  As tall as they are, they have quite the young face.

“Yup,” he says.  “But first, I’m teaching you how to sew.  If you’re going to tear my clothes, you’re going to know how to fix it.”

They duck their head sheepishly, embarrassed, guilty, but happy that he’s going to teach them something new.

Hook, line, sinker.

He takes them, first, to one of his caves, his hideouts.  He has his stash of weapons there, so they can start training with them to get the kid used to weaponry before he buys them anything.

The trip takes a week, and during it he has to stop himself from strangling the kid every evening.  They light up every two seconds, prattling on about every little thing they spot, skipping along with both their pack of things and his own.  He thought making them carry his things as well as their own would get them tired enough that he wouldn’t have to listen to them chatter well into the night, but they manage to ask so many questions it makes his head spin.

“Do you think that anyone is going to like you if you never shut up?” he growls out, one night.  “I can barely hear my own thoughts, you keep spouting out all of yours.”

They blink.  Hunch their shoulders.  Shift their gaze off to the side.

“I don’t know a lot,” they mutter.  “I thought asking questions was how, uh, I learn?  My mom always had me tell her what was on my mind, so she could let me know if I was thinking of something wrong.”

They shrug their shoulders, gaze off somewhere, or sometime else.

“Well I’m not your mom,” he snaps.  “And neither is anyone else.  Trust me, no one wants to hear your thoughts.”

The kid looks up at him, hunched over and sitting down.  Their pupils shift, again.  Their expression goes carefully blank.

“Oh,” tThey reply.  “Sorry.”

Macaque lets out a huff.  He doesn’t want to be the bad guy here.  Not only is it a bad look, it also makes the kid less likely to trust him.  It’s a balancing act, where he toes the line.  Sure, the kid can take a bit more attitude than most, but you kick a dog enough and it bites back.

If you kick a dog, and then feed it nice food for a month before kicking it again, well...it takes it a lot longer to think of biting.

“Look,” he sighs.  “I’m saying this for your sake, kid.  I’m patient, but most people aren’t.  You think a regular demon will just tell you to shut up?”

He pauses, levies them an incredulous look.  “You’d lose a tooth or something, or an eye.”

They flinch, when he says eye.  He files that away for later.

“How about this,” He continues.  “You get 3 random questions per day while we walk, and 2 random comments.  Sound fair?”

Kid looks up at him, a little less despondent, and then they smile.

“Okay.” They turn to the fire, grabbing a piece of firewood from the pile and adding it to the fire.  

They glance up at Macaque, after a bit.  “Thanks.”

Macaque reaches over and ruffles their hair, and it doesn’t feel like there’s a fake smile on his face when Kid giggles and leans into the touch.

When it comes to weapons, the kid is clumsy.

Most long weapons are surprisingly difficult for them to wield.  Their height should be an advantage in that regard, giving them more of a reach, but instead all their long limbs are good for are getting hit whenever they slip with a staff or spear in hand.  They nick themselves a few times, and Macaque thinks he’s going to have to make a fuss with cleaning them up, but every time they get cut they pull out well worn gauze and some mixture, and carefully clean and wrap the wound themselves.

“My mom taught me,” they explain when he stares for too long.

Anything long is difficult for them to handle, so he throws those out the window.  Now, short blades they do well with, but they don’t like to stab.

“Curved blades,” he suggests, handing them a pair.  “They’re more for slashing.  Like a couple of extra claws, but longer.”

They hold them awkwardly, but with some careful correction they do a few practice swings, glancing over at Macaque for approval.

“Looks good,” he says, because they seem most steady with the twin blades, and that’s something to hone in on.

The kid beams.  Macaque finds himself smiling back.

They train for a couple months, not just with the curved blades.  A jack of all trades is far more useful than a master of one, after all, and letting them have at least a rudimentary understanding of how to use most weapons will make it so even if they’re without their typical arsenal, they’ll be able to make do.

That, and between the hand to hand combat lessons, will make them a force to be reckoned with, though they still refuse to strike with a killer’s intent.

All in due time, though.  Macaque would hate to waste all this effort to create something of use by scaring them off with his impatience.

They know of the Monkey King.

“I hear about him all the time,” they say, over dinner.  “He’s a very famous monkey!”

“Sure,” Macaque grumbles, ignoring the urge to punch their teeth in.

It’s not their fault, he knows.  Anyone who knows anyone would know of the Great Sun Wukong enough to—

“Have you met him?”

Now, there’s a question.  Something dark and pleased rises up when he hears it, because he can’t ruin the reputation of Sun Wukong to the world, but starting small never hurts, and why not score some trust with Kid along the way?

“We were actually pretty close,” he explains.

The look on their face when he shows them his scar and tells them how he got it is just priceless.

Shopping with them is...something else.  

He takes them to the market closeby, a few miles out from where they met in the woods.  They’re like a kid in a candy store, bouncing between market fronts and looking over every random object with interest.

“Some of the people here owe me favors,” they whisper conspiratorially to him, waving at a few of the shop owners.  “I helped them out!  It was nice.”

“Mhmm,” he nods along.

Kid is very, very insistent on favors.  The wording is important, and Macaque pockets it, pulling out the phrase whenever Kid starts to get too hesitant about doing what Macaque needs them to.

“What’s the whole favor business for, anyway?” he asks, because he genuinely is curious. 

As much as Kid’s ramblings can get annoying, they do provide insight.  Information on insecurities makes for a fun leverage.

“They owe me,” Kid replies.  “I do what they want, and then they can’t hurt me.”

Short, simple, to the point.  But oh so interesting, an insight Macaque files away.  He can’t go around hurting Kid after the favor is done, then.  That’s fine.  He has plenty of time to get them to heel without yanking on the leash.

A few tugs will do well enough, anyway.

They reach the weapon shop, and Kid is enamored with a purple pair of their preferred weapon, fluttering over to them and tracing the shapes with their fingers.  They’re practically bouncing on their feet, grabbing fistfuls of their pant legs to stop themself from snatching up their prize immediately.

They glance back to Macaque for approval.

“Not a bad color.” Macaque has always liked purple.  Maybe that’s why Kid doesn’t annoy him as much as most people.  They’re bright in personality, but wear the colors of shadows, and hide in the shade rather than stand out in the spotlight.

Kid preens at the compliment.

“Can-uh-is this what-can I have them?  Please?” They’re vibrating with excitement, eyes wide and earnest as they hope for a yes.

“Maybe,” Macaque replies, smooth as silk.  “It all depends on if you’re going to use them properly.”

That gives them pause.  Their excitement diminishes into confusion as they try and parse out just what Macaque means, ears twitching.

It is almost charming in a way, how they always seem to be moving a little bit.  Whether their tail is swaying back and forth, or they’re curling and uncurling their toes, or fluttering their fingers at their sides, they move.

“I...know how to use them,” they finally say.  “You taught me.”

“Practically,” Macaque replies.  “But you still won’t fight with them.”

Kid blinks again, tilting their head to the side.  Genuinely confused, befuddled, uncertain of his words.  He watches their eyes slide to the side, glancing around and trying to figure out what exactly he means.

“I…,” they start, haltingly.  “I thought I was?”

Macaque sighs, more out of exhaustion than annoyance, but they take it as such, ears drooping low.  Their tail brushes the floor.

“Intent, kid,” he says.  “You can use the weapons, but you don’t fight with them.  Not with intent.”

“Intent to what?” Kid asks, hesitant but insistent.

“Kill,” Macaque says, simply.  “These weapons are for killing.  If you aren’t going to use them like that, there’s no point in you getting them.  No point in continuing the favor.”

He can tell the second part hits them hard.  They stiffen, hands clasping in front of their stomach, tight.  Their feet overlap each other, toes curled, shoulders hunched, tail coiled around their leg.

Fidgeting, tense like a coiled spring, Macaque waits, because he’s seen this before.  Every time he pushes, they duck their head in quiet defiance for only a moment, before

They buckle, going limp.

“No,” they mutter.  “You’re right.  I’ll get intent, sir.”

Sir is new.

Macaque likes it. 

“Good.  Then they’re yours—” He gestures to the twin blades, with purple glossy handles and white grips.  “Take them.”

Their smile is smaller than it was before, when they pull the pair from the rack.  Their hands tremble when they hold them; they grip the blades tight to keep them steady.

Macaque pays for the blades, and ignores how still they’ve become.

With Kid’s preferred blades acquired, Macaque ramps up training.  He pushes them farther, because he’s laid the groundwork, and now the only way to get them to bend is to force them into the position.

Starting small is important.  Kid is still fit to scatter if he scares them.  It’s like placing a frog in a pot of boiling water.  It doesn’t work.  You set them in the room temperature water first, and then turn up the heat.  Slowly, still.  If he cranked it up now, well, they’d still jump out.

So, they start with a shadow clone.  Looks like a real person, but is detached enough from it that Kid won’t get too freaked when they attack it.  No blood, no screams, just smoke and mirrors to get them in action.

Maybe he should be concerned that he’s teaching them to fight a visage of him, but Macaque knows Kid isn’t stupid enough to think they can beat him.

That would be ridiculous.

He guides them through the motions, hands on their wrists as he tugs their arms into the correct positions, jerking their hand forward in a slashing motion and letting go just as they make contact with the clone, dissipating it with a single strike.

Typically his clones are more powerful, but an easy win to start will embolden them to strike harder next time.

“Nice job!” he pats them on the back, hard enough that they stumble a little from the force of it.

They’re smiling though, small and secretly pleased.  They love praise, he finds, desperate for approval.  A few kind words can feed them for a week, if he plans it out right.  Not that he’s always planning.  Some do just...slip out.

“Now,” he summons another clone, placing it a few feet away.  “Try this one on your own.”

Kid nods, turns, and settles into a stance.  They charge forward and strike.

Macaque smiles.

From clones, comes animals.

After all, he explains, they have to eat.  Sure, a true warrior eats less than most, but they still need to have food.  Starving themselves when they’re in the middle of training, in the middle of gaining muscle and strength, is stupid.  They need to bulk up.

“I don’t, um, usually eat much,” Kid says.

Macaque scoffs.

“That’s why you’re a stick.” He gestures to their general size, how their clothes hang off of them.

They fidget, shrugging a little.

“I guess,” they reply, which is their typical response when they don’t exactly agree but don’t have the courage to actually disagree.

“Well, I know,” he bites back, finding some sort of pleasure in how they shrink away from him.  “We need to make sure you know how to make food anyway.  You’re no use to me half-starved.”

He drums up options, glancing off into the forest they’re surrounded by.

“There’s plenty of food out here,” he says.  “We can fish in streams, shoot for birds, and there’s a human settlement just out west a couple miles, so—”

“We are not,” Kid interrupts, interrupts, voice harder than he’s ever heard, “Eating humans.”

Their eyes are sharp.  Angry, even.  So rarely does he find anger in them, find fire where there is cool terror and anxiety.  This is something noticeable.  Kid likes humans, enough to fight for them.

They’re trembling, waiting for his reaction.  Clearly, they’re terrified that he’ll snap at them, that he’ll shut them down.  But they don’t apologize.

Interesting.  How rare is it that Macaque sees them be brave?

“Fine,” he shrugs.  “They scream too much to be worth it, anyway.”

That much is true.  While he might not be showing off the six ears that beget his title, they’re still there, and shouting is nothing that he wants to deal with.

Kid relaxes, relief evident on their face that he’s not yelling at them.  It’s good that they’re smart enough to fear his reproach.

“But, that means you’re gonna have to learn to gut fish,” he jerks a thumb towards the stream behind them.  

Kid smiles, with all their sharp teeth on display.

“Sir yes sir!” They salute.

Macaque has to wonder who taught them such a motion as they jump up and rush to the water.

He stands and prepares the next lesson.

In the weeks following, they learn to fish with both a line and with their hands.  He teaches them to use a bow for the birds, as well as the bears.  They only kill one bear, because the amount of meat will last them ages and it’s foolish to waste such meat.

They trade some of it for spices in the human markets, once Macaque makes sure they know how to look human.  Apparently, it’s the only form they can shift into.  Not surprising, but disappointing nonetheless.

Kid takes to cooking with a gusto he doesn’t expect.

“I would help my mom with dinner,” they explain, setting up the fire one night.  “I didn’t know how she was making what she was, but I loved all of it.  I—”

They cut themself off, suddenly shy.

Macaque doesn’t pry.  Half because he doesn’t care, and half because he knows it’s a fruitless endeavor.  For most things, Kid can be cajoled into explanation, but if they truly don’t want to say anything, he’ll get nothing.  Which, considering his secrets, is fair enough.

“I...like that I can make something nice,” Kid finally admits, turning away from him to grab some spices.  “For you.”

Oh.

Somewhere along the line, Macaque stops finding them as annoying as they should be.

They smile at him like he’s a star, the sun, and years of being a moon, of being second best, makes that look something to covet.  If that means he lets them drag him into the forest to look at some rare plants, if that means listening to them ramble about the medicinal properties of said plants, well.

It’s only because it ingratiates them to him.  That’s it.

Physical affection, too, is something they desire.  It’s a reward.  That is it.  A reward for a job well done, a pick-me-up when they’re too morose to be useful, a new tool in his set to fix them into something worthwhile.

Say nothing to the times they shivered in the cold, slowly shifting towards him, pressed against his back to conserve warmth.  Macaque didn’t push them off because he was asleep.  Say nothing to the days they would shiver in the day, lack of proper fur like he had to keep them warm, and he’d lend them his scarf.  He didn’t need it anyway.  He’s stronger than they are, he can deal with the cold.  He’s setting an example.

He refuses to groom them.  Grooming is something private, something reserved for people who are no longer around, who left, who left and took the whole of him with them.  And Kid is not that someone.

Sometimes, though, he wonders.

Bright, like a star, they can shine in the darkest corners.  Hands bloodied from a carcass, they’re always gentle with the animals they kill.  Always certain to make the cuts clean and precise, so the animal dies quickly.

It’s a small mercy, but to choose to find that mercy and lean into it…

They’re not naive.  Neither was he.  Enough knowledge of a cruel world to understand hate, but enough kindness in a soul to push back against it.  But that type of soul is flighty, off to the next weeping child to console, the next problem to solve, the next world to save.

That type of soul leaves, and doesn't come back.

Better to crush that type of soul, then.

“Mac!” Kid calls, holding a full net.  “Look at how much fish I caught!”

Macaque fights a smile.

“Don’t call me that,” he barks out and wishes it hurt less when he sees them flinch.

“Sorry, sir,” they reply.  “I got excited.  We’ll have food for weeks!  I’ll dry some of the fish out for snacks, and I have some spices that would go really well with—”

They pause, flushing, ears pointed up and pink with embarrassment.  They bite their lip.

“Sorry,” They say, again.  “I know you don’t like me rambling…,”

Not typically, no.

But now…

“Well, if it’s about our food stores, it’s important,” he says, a justification that rings hollow.  “So go on, kid.”

They brighten, eyes wide and happy as Macaque becomes their sun, again.

Macaque basks in it, just a little, and thinks he can wait a little longer.

They get very good at using the blades.  Between traveling, getting food, making food, and training, they can hold their own pretty well.

Of course, they only really fight animals and clones.  Whenever Macaque suggests they spar with him, they lock up, terrified by the idea.  That’s fine, though, because Macaque wants them to be in top shape when they actually fight him, anyway.

They can manage against eight clones at once, dodging punches and slashing through them.  Of course, the clones aren’t at their top durability or strength, because Kid isn’t Monkey King levels of powerful like he is.

But, they seem to be doing fine, so he raises the intensity level a little bit.  Has a couple of the clones level up, so to speak, to keep Kid on their toes.  They can’t expect every enemy to be the same skill level every time.  They have to be used to surprises.

Maybe he does it too quickly, because Kid ducks, slashes, and is unable to dodge the kick to their side that sends them flying.

Their head cracks against a tree trunk just outside the clearing.

When they drop, they don’t move.

Macaque is up on his feet in an instant.  The clones vanish as he sprints across the clearing, at Kid’s side so fast his vision blurs with the motion.

“Shit,” he breathes.

Macaque lifts Kid up in his arms.  They’re limp in his grasp, eyes closed, and they look dead but he knows they’re not, he checks their pulse and they’re fine, it’s fine.  He wouldn’t kill them.  Not like this.  

He feels where their head hit the tree, and his hand comes back wet.  

“Shit, shit, shit.”

He reaches into Kid’s pockets, and finds that roll of gauze they always have on them.  They buy a new roll every time they go to the market, just in case.

He hasn’t needed to wrap wounds in a while, considering his healing...style, but he remembers how it goes.

Blood drips onto the ground, even as he wraps the wound as best and as tight as he can.  He folds Kid’s gangly long limbs so he can lift them up, and their forehead rests in the crook of his neck.  He can feel their breath on his fur.

Good.  They’re still breathing.

He squats down and presses hard against the dirt, lifting off the ground and speeding through the forest.  There’s a demon market a few miles out, there’s got to be a healer there, they can fix this.  They will, whether they like to or not.  No one says no to the Six-Eared Macaque, regardless of circumstance.

He hears a shuddering whine crawl out of Kid’s mouth.  A hand grasps at his shirt, as pained gasps reach his ears.

He can hear them so clearly.  Curse of six ears.  But, he can still hear their heartbeat, and even the gasps are a good sign.  They can still breathe.  It’s fine.

“Give me a minute, kid.” He whispers, forgiving the hand because they’re injured, that’s the only reason.  “We’ll get you fixed up, just sit tight.”

They whimper and curl up tighter, as their wrappings on their head stain quick.

It takes Macaque twenty minutes to get to the market.  Twenty minutes for eleven miles, as he rushed between trees, over boulders and hills, through towns.  It would have been quicker, but whenever he picked up too much speed, Kid would whimper as the wind whipped at their face and head wrappings.  So Macaque took it a touch slower, if only to keep him from hearing that noise.

They’d passed out a few minutes before he’d arrived at the market, though, so he’d managed to speed things up a little.

He slips between the shadows of market stalls, eyes searching for a healer.  They’re typically at one end of the market or the other, to keep the stench of blood and pus and rot from infected wounds away from the rest of the market.

He finds the tent and dashes inside.

The healer is some sort of fox demon, tail twitching as Macaque enters.  Sharp eyes fall on him and then Kid in his arms, and when Macaque speaks up his tone leaves little room for argument or reproach.

“They hit their head.” He doesn’t explain how.  It’s none of their business what he does with his tools.  “Fix it.”

The healer raises a brow, glancing at the two monkeys, one with sharp eyes and the other curled and trembling in the other’s arms.

“There is a fee,” comes a silk voice, near a hiss.  They point to their price.

Macaque summons a clone and sets Kid in its arms, growling under his breath.  He digs into his pocket and pulls out his coin pouch, digging into it and grabbing out the correct amount.  He slams it onto the counter with a force that would have caused the coins to scatter all over the room if not for how tightly he grips them in his fist.

They trickle down onto the desk with a clatter.  Macaque places his trembling fists at his sides, enraged enough that his eyes glow.  If not for the fact that this healer is needed, their blood would paint the tent and everything inside of it.

The wary look the healer sends him is proof that they understand that.

“Fix,” he growls.  “It.”

The healer gestures to the table off to the side, and Macaque has his clone set Kid down before dispelling it.

The healer moves Kid onto their side, lifting their head and glancing at the covered wound.  With a careful claw, they cut away the bandage, a swirl of magic creating a small bubble over the wound, keeping the blood from spilling.

The lack of pressure, the new sensation of magic, gets Kid to stir.

They twitch, fingers and toes curling as their eyes blink open.  Confusion paints their posture and expression, and they take in a hitching breath, ears swiveling to try and figure what is happening.

“M-Mo-Mac-h-hhhhhh,” they gasp out, trying to move.

The healer presses them gently back down onto the table, placing a careful finger to their forehead.

“Shhhh,” they whisper.  “Rest, child.”

Kid’s eyes slide shut.  They relax.

The healer first gets a rag and some water, carefully dabbing at the wound, cleaning away any dirt that may have gotten into the crack.  They use their claws to align the tiny pieces of the skull that have dislodged both from the wound and from the journey.  Then, they grab a jar off of the shelf, pulling off the lid and dipping their fingers in to scoop out an orange-yellow cream substance.  Gently, they rub it across the wound, and then wrap it again.

They use a spoon to put more of that cream into a smaller jar, and hand it to Macaque, along with a roll of gauze.

“The wound will heal in a few days.  Change the bandages twice a day and reapply the cream.  It speeds up the process and prevents infection,” the healer explains.  “The child may have a foggy memory of the incident, and may hallucinate.  Be aware.”

Macaque sticks the jar and gauze in his pocket and nods, picking Kid up.  He’s gentle about it, supporting their head on his shoulder.  They shift a little in their sleep, pressing their forehead against his neck.  Their fur brushes against his chin.

Their tail curls around his arm, a comforting squeeze.  The end wisps against his palm.

Macaque pointedly ignores how any of this makes him feel and heads off.

Back at camp, he sets Kid up with blankets and enough soft material for a pillow, making sure their head is elevated and kept away from the hard ground.  He sends a few clones out to grab firewood, setting up a flame and throwing some stuff together for a soup.

Macaque, on a whole, doesn’t cook much.  He’s content to chomp on apples and whatever fruits he finds.  Occasionally, he’ll cook some meat.  Otherwise, he just won’t eat often.  Kid’s the one who makes all the different concoctions.

He hopes the mix of spices is good here.

Kid wakes up a few hours later, when stars dot the sky and Macaque shivers a little at the night chill.  Bleary eyes stare up at the sky, pupils shifting to try and focus, though Macaque doesn’t see them settle.

He scoops a bowl of soup, still warm though the fire has died down, and shuffles to Kid’s side.

“Hey, kid,” he whispers.  

Macaque is not a delicate man.  But no one is here to see, no one who could matter, so he hooks an arm beneath Kid’s shoulders and lifts them up so they’re sitting up against his chest, though not fully considering the height difference.  God knows they won’t be able to sit up on their own, and he refuses to waste good soup.

Bleary eyes blink, staring up at him.  Recognition flickers in their gaze.

“Mom?” they croak.

Macaque.  Freezes.

He carefully lifts the bowl of soup to Kid’s mouth.

“Drink,” he says, pointedly ignoring their comment.

Hallucinations, the healer told him.  That’s all this is.  Kid isn’t seeing him, after all.

Kid takes a few steady gulps of the soup, turning away to breathe.  Macaque exercises patients by glancing up at the sky and ignoring how idiotic this is.  He’s not a babysitter.  He doesn’t do this.  He isn’t their parent.  He isn’t...

“Did Dad hurt you?” Kid turns back, looking up with eyes that stare through him rather than at him.  “Your eye…”

They reach up, fingers close enough to brush the line where his scar is, hidden beneath glamour.  Macaque pulls away, lifting the bowl up to Kid’s lips again in lieu of responding to that.

“Drink,” he snarls.

They flinch, nodding and getting the rest of the soup down.  He helps them back to their bed, and their eyes stare back up at the sky with that same faraway look.

“I’ll be better next time,” they whisper, quiet but strong.  “So you won’t get hurt.”

Macaque turns away, and doesn’t look back until he knows they’re asleep.  Hallucinations, he knows.  Hallucinations.  That’s the only reason they’re saying anything like that at all.  They don’t know him, he’s kept his heart under his cloak, never on his sleeve.  That's why he’s their teacher, so they will learn to do the same.

He watches the fire sway in the night, until he can find it in himself to sleep.

The next day goes mostly smoothly, with incoherent ramblings occasionally from Kid that Macaque tunes out.  He changes their bandages in the morning and then goes out, leaving a shadow clone to watch the camp while collecting food and other supplies.

They sleep through most of the day, but at night when he goes to change their bandages again, they start to squirm.

“Kid,” he starts, trying to hold them steady.  The wrappings are already off, and he’s trying to keep dirt from getting in.  

They kick and writhe, whispering and growling and making an assortment of whimpering noises he can’t make heads nor tails of.  He grips them tight enough to bruise, to keep them steady.

“Kid, I’m not going to hurt you!” he shouts.

“YOU HURT ME!” they scream, and it sounds so much as if the words had been torn from their throat that Macaque is surprised he doesn’t see blood splatter out of their mouth.  “YOU HURT ME!”

Their hand claws at his, and he drops them with a shout of pain as they tear off the skin of his knuckles.  They drop to the dirt with their own short cry of discomfort, curling in on themself as Macaque backs away.

“You—” They cough.  Their breaths are short and uneven.  “You-it-it’s like an earthquake,” their voice is quiet and strained and quick.  “Cracks beneath the surface.  Snow, melting from inside.  Inside out.  Cracking.  Melting.  I’m-I’m-I can’t see it.”

They gasp it out, trembling.

The water is boiling.  Why is Macaque the one burning?

They still. 

“You don’t look,” they finally say, a hoarse whisper.  “You don’t want to.  You don’t want to see.”

Macaque swallows.  Stares at the-the—

The child may have a foggy memory of the incident, and may hallucinate.

Child.

He shuffles forward, so, so gentle as he reaches toward them.  They don’t move when his hand brushes against their back.  They’re boneless when he pulls them toward him.  As if every last drop of them was poured into their words, they’re empty.

He patches their wound.  Sets them down.  They’re silent, asleep on the bed.

He sits, watches the blood from his knuckles drip to the ground.  It’ll heal on its own.  He can heal on his own.

He doesn’t sleep.

The next couple of days are easy.  Kid doesn’t say or do much, moving when prompted and sleeping when not.  Macaque ignores the buzz in the back of his head that feels like guilt.  He leaves Kid with a shadow clone and tears down a forest.  Anger is easy to deal with.  This is not.

A little under a week after the incident, Kid wakes up with a groan.

“Mac?” They rub at their eyes sitting up with a bit of effort.

Macaque fights the urge to tell them not to call him that.  He’ll save it for later.

“About time you woke up,” he says, with an easy grin on his face.

Kid blinks up at him, confused. 

“You hit your head,” he explains with a wave of his hand.  “One of my clones caught you off guard.  You were out for a few days.”

Kid blinks a few more times, tail and ears twitching.  They tilt their head to the side in thought.  They reach up and feel the back of their head, poking at the freshly healed wound.  They wince.

“Oh,” they say.  They smile up at him.  “Thank you for taking care of me.”

They stand up on shaky legs, shuffling a little before they steady.

“I’m gonna see about some food.  I’ll make you your favorite tonight!” They grin, all teeth, and vanish into the forest before Macaque can stop them.

He stares at their retreating form.  He sends a shadow clone to keep an eye on them, in case their wound acts up.

He sits and ponders their smile.

YOU HURT ME!

Thank you for taking care of me.

The strange thing is, he doesn’t think they were lying either time.

He eases them back into training, and they fall back into it with ease, the injury fading from view as their fur covers it up.  He’s still ever so careful the next couple of weeks.  The last thing he needs is for them to get hurt again.

They’re too much like him.  Too much like the sun, the hero, but the difference is that the hero could be like that because he was powerful.  The hero could strike down any foe, the hero had power.  It allowed him to be soft.

Kid does not have power.  They can get hurt.  They can die.

Their heart is on their sleeve.  They smile.  They curl up, sometimes, hiding their chest, but more often than not they’re splayed out, an open target.  Wide eyed, not completely naive, but just hopeful enough to get them killed.

And he...he doesn’t want them killed.

It’s sad, he thinks.  If they were stronger, maybe they could stay as they are.  But they aren’t, so he will rip their heart from their sleeve and teach them to keep it hidden.  

Whether they like it or not.

“You’re too...you. To be intimidating like I am,” he tells them, pacing.  “But there are different types of scary.  We’ll have to find the one that fits you.”

Kid is sitting on a rock, watching him pace.  Their eyes follow his movements like a pendulum, swinging back and forth.  They tap their palms on their knees, nodding along as they listen.

“Um, Mac?” They start.

He glares in their direction.  They shrink down, shoulders hunched.

“Sir,” they amend, quickly.  “Um, why do I have to be scary?”

It’s a valid question.  Annoying, but fair, and an explanation will get them to further listen.  Still, the fact that they don’t know, when they’re as old as they are (not that Macaque knows how old they are), is annoying.

“Because,” he stresses, rolling his eyes.  “When you intimidate, people won’t fight you.  Intimidation is making sure everyone in the room knows you’re the strongest one there.  Even if you’re not.”

And they won’t be, more often than not.  They’re crafty, and fast, but not strong.  In a standstill fight, they’ll lose a lot.  But that’s why the intimidation look has to be perfect.

“Oh,” they reply.  “Cool!”

“Of course it is,” he shoots back, puffing out his chest.  “Now, angry intimidation won’t work.  You don’t have a good angry face.”

“I don’t get angry often,” Kid shrugs.

“Exactly.  You don’t have it in you,” he rubs his chin in thought.  “We could go for the ‘danger behind a smile’ angle.”

He takes a few steps toward them.  With how they’re sitting, a rock as a prop up, he’s at eye level with them standing.

“We want a small smile, kid.” He reaches a hand towards their face, to help shape their grin.

They flinch back, and have their blades out in a flash.  Their eyes are wide, locked onto Macaque’s outstretched hand.

Macaque blinks, startled by their sharp shift in mood, and Kid comes back to themself, lowering their hunched shoulders.

“O-oh,” They breathe, letting their hands drop.  “Right.  Y-you’re right.  I think.”

They set the blades on the ground, shuffling their feet.

“...Alright,” Macaque continues.  He knows they were hit by a clone of his, and, well, the clones are made looking like him.  They might be more shaky than they say, over that.  He certainly has taught them to be quiet. “Now, you want the smile to be small.  Your eyes are wide, and your pupils are small.  You want to look like you’re a second from ripping their heart out and eating it in front of them.”

Kid makes a face.  “That’s gross,” they say.

“It’s an analogy,” Macaque groans, throwing his head back and slapping a hand over his eyes.  “Just do it.”

They try it, and Macaque has to give them a few pointers.  No, your smile is too wide.  Don’t fidget.  Keep your tail still.  Don’t look away.  Keep eye contact.

Finally, they have a good look.

“There,” he says, stepping back.  “That will make sure nobody messes with or hurts you, kid.”

Their expression drops away into something blank, and Macaque stills.  He wouldn’t tell them, but when their expression is empty it’s far scarier than their smile.  Better they not know that lest they use it to an excessive degree.

“Um,” they start, a little shy.  “But, you do this.  And you got hurt?”

Their eyes trace the scar hidden beneath glamour.  Macaque turns so that eye is out of view.

“It doesn’t always work,” he mutters, casting a glare in their direction.  “Because some people know that they’re stronger than anyone, so intimidation doesn’t work.”

“What do I do then?” they ask, with all the wide eyes of a student expecting their teacher to have the perfect answer.

“You claw at any part of them you can reach,” Macaque replies.  “And you run.”

He ramps up their training.  Any time they aren’t traveling is spent sparring, practicing, cooking, hunting, no free time.  No time to play or joke around.

They’re confused, at first, by the change of pace.  They try the same tricks, the same comments.  Macaque does not budge.

“Quit it.”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“Stop acting like a child.”

They quiet, eventually.  Learn to be smaller and less bright, keep their light within themself so it doesn’t attract too much attention.  They learn to keep their thoughts inside, following orders with a blank face and the occasional grin.

They still get overexcited, and sometimes Macaque bites his tongue.  If it’s just around him then it’s fine in small doses.

It’s not because he’s scared of their light going out.  It’s not because he likes it when they ramble and drag him along until they get him to grin.  It’s not.

He gets them a new outfit.  Their old one is worn, the fabric thin and worn and ripping.  They sew up the patches and clean it as best they can, but considering the age it’s soon to be a lost cause. 

They do love shopping, so he strings them along.

They sprint through different styles.  Everything is new and interesting to them, as if they spend time outside of the present and are then shocked by the new future.  He trails them along different stalls, pulls them away from items they shouldn’t touch, and critiques outfit after outfit.

They find the right one, though he’s quick to tell them how rare that is, so they don’t get a big head.  Besides, with how tall and gangly they are, finding something that fits them is pretty difficult.  It takes them two hours to find something right, two hours better spent training, moving around.

He goes up to pay for it while they spin around and jump excitedly in their new look, and his eyes widen at the price.

“Enchanted pockets,” the tailor explains.  “They hold up to a full pack’s worth of items without showing it.”

And, well, Macaque didn’t expect to spend this much.  He turns around, because they don’t need those pants, they can carry a pack just fine, and—

Kid sees him looking and waves, gesturing to their new outfit and striking a valiant pose.

Macaque sighs, softens, and pays.

They tell him the flaps on the side are just like his, something excited and happy in their tone, and he grins.  If they’re just like him, then they’ll be smart.  If they’re just like him, they won’t make silly mistakes like trusting people, like getting attached, like getting hurt.

The issue with that is when you stare at a person who is functionally a mirror, you start to see all your flaws.

His final challenge isn’t supposed to work.

Kid has barely been able to spar with him, when he gives them his challenge.  They spar and they don’t fight hard, and Macaque always wins.  

But then they say they have to go, and Macaque knows they’re not ready (secretly, they’ll never be ready because they’ll never be powerful enough, but if he keeps them within arms reach he can make sure they stay away from him) so he picks something he knows they can’t do.

Kill.

He expects them to get to where that demon is and balk.  He expects that they’ll try but their fears will halt them in their tracks, and they’ll come back with their tail tucked between their legs and apologies spilling from their lips.  He expects that he’ll smile, and say that they’ll just have to stay with him, then, now won’t they?  And then they will, and everything will be fine and good and right.

He doesn’t need or want anyone, but...he doesn’t mind if they’d stay.

He doesn’t know them.  He doesn’t know what they’ve lived through, what they’ve done before.  He doesn’t know how deep their ties to favors run.  He’s never asked, he doesn’t know.

Two days after he tells them to kill, they come back with a severed head.

They’re smiling, when they do.  Their tail curls around their leg and they’re trembling, but they’re smiling like they always do.  Macaque is supposed to be able to tell when someone is lying, and he’s supposed to know them and read them like an open book, but Kid smiles and it looks real.

They’re trembling.  He barely hears what they’re saying, over the sound of their thudding heartbeat.

The eyes on the head are sewn shut.  He asks, and they give him an excuse, and he doesn’t press because he never has.  He’s never cared enough to ask about their past, their feelings, never dug deep enough.  He thought they were surface-level, because they’re quiet, and they don’t talk about themself too much beyond comments about their mother.  He’s staring at a stranger he’s known for over half a year.

He’s not supposed to be caught off guard.  So self-assured, he plans his schemes with the knowledge that he understands all the moves the player will make.  Now he’s in the dark, lost with the simple sight in front of him.

Macaque doesn’t understand, but if Kid’s a stranger he’ll keep them as one.

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out two gifts.  He’d gotten them months ago, finding a jeweler who could enchant the token, and a book binder at the market that could create a tome practically infinite in space but small enough to be a notebook.

He holds it out, and then they smile so wide he thinks it could crack the porcelain of the mask of indifference they’re wearing so perfectly.  They strangle their tail as if it were their neck, and he knows that must hurt.

They have blood, staining their feet.  Every part of them is pristine, but the dried blood is crusted on their feet, covered with dirt.

He watches them go, tired eyes and bloody feet.

He makes his dinner by himself.  He makes the fire by himself, he sits by the fire by himself.  He sleeps by himself.  He travels by himself.

There is no voice, pointing out different flowers.  He doesn’t hear about this certain mixture that can cure this illness.  He doesn’t get any anecdotes, he doesn’t hear the patter of feet as they run ahead.

It’s quiet, save for the typical sounds of the forest.  As it should be. 

The Six-Eared Macaque walks alone.

Just like a warrior should be.  Isn’t that why they left, to be alone?  Isn’t that what he wanted?

Macaque ends up back on that cliff, where they stared up at the sky on New Year's.  He never cared much for the holiday, but the Kid was insistent, so he'd let them drag him along. 

He closes his eyes, and for the first time when he thinks of fireworks he doesn't see Wukong's smile. When he opens them, the sky looks devoid of stars. 

The moon looks lonely, without them.

.

.

.

Centuries later, a silver token with amethyst gemstone eyes buzzes in Spirit’s pocket.

[child-of-the-nighttime-stars]

What Stirs You From The Stares of Your Nightmares

“It’s getting late, Grace. Are you ready for bed?” This simple phrase had become a staple part of the nightly routine.

The same could be said about the darkened circles around her mother’s eyes and the soft slur of her words when she spoke. Yet Grace had come to expect it. Just as she expected getting dressed into fuzzy pajamas. The pink set with flowers scattered on the bottoms was her favorite, even if they were missing a few buttons on the shirt and the drawstring within the pants. She then was tucked under a mountain of snuggly sheets and blankets. They were all different colors, textures, and sizes. A small detail that was easily missed within the darkness of bedtime but became apparent when they were balled into a lump during the day and each covering was too big or had shrunk too much to properly fit the mattress. Then finally being hugged tightly by her favorite teddy bear, Mr. Snugglesworth, before drifting off to the land of dreams.

Grace beamed as bright as the stars twinkling outside her window when she nodded at her mother. This earned her a subtle upward quirk of her mother’s lips in return before her mother began to usher the girl to her pantry of a bedroom. Grace was usually very eager to be tucked in, so as her feet began to drag across the shaggy carpet towards her room, her mother’s heart sunk into her stomach. Grace’s mother glanced down at the child but before she could even raise a heavy brow the young girl answered her wordless question.

“Daddy promised to tell me a story tonight! He said that he’d definitely do it tonight! He promised.” Grace’s words practically bounced at the prospect of her father telling her a story. So did the loosely tied, chocolate pigtails which rested on her shoulders.

Grace’s mother rested her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. Her pedicured nails ran along Grace’s shoulderblade as if to smear away such a thought. “I don’t think your father’s gonna give you a good story tonight. He’s in one of his moods, as I’m sure you saw at dinner.”

“Yeah, but he can’t still be mad about work, can he? And-- And he promised! He promised to make up for the other night!”

A quiet sigh pushed past the painted lips of Grace’s mother. While the grip she had on her daughter’s shoulder grew a bit firmer. All to push the young girl through the cream-colored curtain that separated the living room from her daughter’s bedroom.

“Yes, well, Daddy makes a lot of promises he doesn’t intend to keep, sweetie. Why don’t you curl up with Mr. Snugglesworth and your other animal friends? I’m sure they’ll help you create an even better story than anything your father could come up with.”

Grace’s big brown eyes stared up at her mother’s clouded gray ones in an attempt to argue. But when her eyes met with her mother’s dull gaze and pursed lips, Grace’s sight fell to the floor.

“Okay, Mommy. But Mr. Snugglesworth and I don’t create the stories like you and Daddy make up.”

With the end of that discussion, Grace stumbled to bed and climbed in. Her mother covered her in a few blankets, but not all of them like she’d done the night before when her speech wasn’t slurred. Then she handed her daughter, the beloved Mr. Snugglesworth before casting her an, ‘I love you,’ and a, ‘goodnight,’ as she exited the room. Without any more conversation, there would be no noise. So it shouldn’t have been long before Grace’s thoughts lulled her to sleep.

But that had been over an hour ago. Instead of that sweet silence that would allow the noise within Grace’s little head to act as her own bedtime story and lullaby, there was screaming. It erupted from downstairs. The old, creaking floorboards had muffled it but not by much. Rather than the sweet stories of royalty and true romance that filled the room by Grace’s rushing thoughts, noise that seemed like nothing but nonsense exploded within the small girl’s even smaller bedroom.

“Goddamnit, Kimry! You’re absolutely shitfaced again!” She could hear her mother shout. This was followed by a quiet thud and then the sound of something shattering.

Grace remembered a little while ago when she and her mother were waiting for the bright yellow school bus one morning. She looked up to her mother and smiled when she noticed her gaze seemed brighter the night before. That was until Grace asked a question regarding it. She asked what her mother meant by the phrase, ‘good-for-nothing’ and why she kept yelling it at her father so late. Grace was curious as to what it meant, but she was more concerned about why her mother and father were being so loud during the quiet time for bed. The feeling of pedicured nails scratching at her scalp before they plucked at one of the braids her mother had crafted that morning lingered on Grace’s mind. She also remembered what her mother had instructed her to do if she did hear her or her father being loud during bedtime.

So Grace did just that. Her tiny stature scooched on the bed until it was pressed against the yellowing wallpaper which covered the chilled concrete wall. She then took the pillow that she had just abandoned and stuffed it on top of her head. Before she took Mr. Snugglesworth and clutched him in her trembling arms for dear life. She tried to lay as still as the floorboards which separated her from her parents, but Grace couldn’t help but jump when she heard her father shout.

“Listen here, bitch! I’m a grown man--”

“Grown man?” Her mother retorted, trying to stifle a humorless laugh, “You’re nothing but a drunk piece of shit who can barely hold down a job! You can’t even remain sober enough to tell your daughter a story for bed!”

When Grace heard her mother refer to her as just her father’s daughter, a heaviness began to weigh down on her heart. Why didn’t her mother use the word, ‘our?’ Grace had learned in school the other day the differences between possessive pronouns and the word ‘our’ seemed far more inclusive. Grace was her mother’s daughter as well and even when her mother and father were mad at each other, they were still a family.

“Oh, Grace wants a bedtime story? I’ll go tell her right now since you couldn’t be bothered to, you bitch!”

Grace shut her eyes tight and puffed out her cheeks to hold her breath. A small whimper managed to hum in the back of her throat though. As desperate as she was to have a story from her father before, she didn’t want one when he was this loud and angry. When he was like this his stories were also loud and angry. They told about her father’s times in war, the deaths he had seen, and the deaths he had caused. The endings were never happy either. If Grace got upset and began crying then her father would get angry and scream at her. So she didn’t cry now either, even though she wanted to. But she still remembered the times that her father would break down into tears himself at the end of his stories, so she would just hug him until he fell asleep and her mother had found them.

So that’s what she did for her teddy while she listened to her mother tell her father to stay away from both herself and Grace. Grace then began to scoot around her bed again. She laid the pillow by her window and kept her eyes on the blanket of stars just outside. They twinkled and swaddled the world within their blue little beams. She didn’t know how long she laid like this, staring at the shining specks. But it was long enough that her parents screaming had faded into silence once more and without even realizing it, Grace drifted off to the world of dreams.

When earthly irises opened once more, it wasn’t with a gentle fluttering. Instead, Grace’s eyes shot wide open as she thrust herself back into the land of reality. She took a desperate gasp of air as her eyes darted in every direction. Her terrified thoughts were scrambling to make sense of the surroundings that had become so dizzying from this sudden awakening. As her heartbeat began to calm its thrashing and her thoughts began to stall out; Grace was greeted by the small gleam of the stars which had put her to bed mere hours before.

Allowing herself to take a deep breath, Grace realized that their light and that of the moon were all she had. Her entire house had become drenched in darkness while she slept. Yet the shimmering stars combined with the waxing moon was enough to swaddle Grace and all that her wide-eyed gaze could see within comforting waves of pale blue light. Or, at least, such light would’ve been a comfort if it hadn’t been accompanied by a stern silence. Grace tilted her head with a raised eyebrow, searching for any kind of sound. Except there was not a single one to be heard. Unlike before, there was no screaming. There wasn’t even a low murmur like she had heard from her father many times before. Not a single door or floorboard groaned or creaked. Even Grace’s breath barely made a sound. It was like someone had come into Grace’s house and put everything on mute like her father had done to her favorite cartoons and songs whenever he decided he wanted to ‘talk.’ A small shudder ran down her spine as Grace clutched Mr. Snugglesworth against her in a one-armed embrace. She felt a small comfort as his matted fur scratched her cheek. She could feel the way her chest hastily rose and fell while shallow gasps filled the air. But even as she listened for them, not a single noise was heard. Although her mind was rushing to dismiss the demons within her dreams, even her thoughts were muted. Grace could only listen to the silent screaming of her instincts telling her it would be okay if she just hid away.

With Mr. Snugglesworth still snatched up in her trembling arm, she buried herself beneath the blankets. Although their weight only seemed to suffocate her rather than provide any of the security she desperately hoped for. Another small whimper stuck to the back of her throat while her brown eyes peeked over the pile. Between the gaps in her curtain, Grace stared out into her desolate living room. Another shudder crawled through her veins as the midnight blue light from the moon felt like it was swallowing her whole. As if its simple shade of serenity was only an act for the darkness in which the demons from her dreams thrived.

So she hid away once more until the warming weight of her blanket pile crushed not only her breath but whatever soft security she tried to create for herself. Although when her earthy irises peered outside of her small room once more, it wasn’t the tiring tranquility of the moonlight that met her sights anymore.

She stared down the cream-colored curtain which separated her bedroom from the rest of the house. It was heavy and scratched against Grace’s skin whenever she’d brush by it. In her mind, it acted as the barrier between her sanctuary and the rest of the world. Grace could see into the living room and the big, comfy, green couch that her mother deemed a throne, although no one seemed to be able to see her. This was a small fact that Grace usually loved when staying up past her bedtime but hated when she just escaped from the monsters lying deep within her memories. But as Grace’s flitting gaze peeked through the sliver of a gap on the right side of the doorway, someone’s dark stare captured her own.

This person’s sight seemed crafted from the ashes of charcoal. The intensity of their gaze acted as the unyielding embers that provided the faint light within them. It was as if this person’s leering eyes were trying to burn right through her very being. Compared with the wide smile that stretched against this person’s stubble-ridden cheeks, Grace couldn’t tell what the person was feeling, let alone what they wanted with her.

Still high from trying to tuck her dream demons back into their dark corners, Grace’s thoughts leaped from one idea to the next. Was this a bad guy from one of her mother’s crime shows? Could this be the scary stranger that Grace’s teachers warned her and all her classmates about? A silent gasp caught in the back of Grace’s throat while her body suddenly laid stiff against the plush pillow that cradled her back. It took her a minute to realize that the messy mop of hair and long gray robe that swayed in the still air belonged to her father.

This realization only made Grace’s chest feel that much heavier. Some part of her wanted to lift her hand, to beckon her father inside, and have him wrap her in one of the tightest hugs to feel some kind of comfort. Yet under her father’s searing gaze, she couldn’t move a muscle. She tried to will herself into even moving a finger although her body remained frozen.

“Daddy, I-I’m awake,” Grace wanted to whisper yet her breath remained locked behind her dried lips. The voice within her mind even remained as nothing more than a pitiful croak.

The only thing that Grace could feel while this staring contest continued was her insides. Her stomach was doing flips and chills ran up and down her spine. Her heart was pounding against her ribs, desperate to escape its cage and beat the breath out of the frail body it resided in. All the while her nerves were set alight beneath her father’s unblinking gaze, making her skin feel like thousands of invisible bugs were scurrying down her skin.

Seconds turned to minutes. Then minutes drifted into what seemed like an eternity to Grace as both bodies remain unmoving. As much as the darkness frightened her, Grace squeezed her eyes so tight that she could see the stars behind her eyelids. The silence that she had longed for hours before was beginning to creep under her crawling skin. It was to the point that Grace almost wished to hear the enraged arguing of her parents or just the mad murmuring from her father, anything that would drown out the smothering silence. Yet as harshly as her heart was pounding in her chest, not even that could be heard with her ears.

Grace waited for another eternity to pass before opening her eyes once more. It felt so long to her that surely the sun should be rising and her father will have retreated to the darkness of downstairs. But when her sight did reveal the world around her, the scene remained unchanged. Even her father’s expression remained as still as it had been before. His sneering smile was still stretched wider than Grace believed his mouth could go. While his sights remained stuck on her stature as if she wasn’t there at all.

The only thing that had changed was as another chill sprinted through her small bones, Grace could actually hear the subtle rustling of her mattress adjusting as her weight shifted. The sound rang in her ears as if it was the loudest sound that had ever graced them. It was such a shock that the breath she had been holding finally pushed past her chapped lips in the form of a gasp. Her eyes that had momentarily glanced towards her bed beneath her, darted back towards her father. Although his stance remained steadfast as if he was completely unaware.

Grace kept her eyes stuck on her father while she tried once more to move her fingers. Finding that she could, caused another breath to escape her lips. She started subtly by bringing her hand over her heart before draping it over Mr. Snugglesworth who was luckily still by her side. All the while she studied her father for any sign of change but her movements remained unnoticed. Grace then began to twist her torso to the right and away from her father. She cringed every time the mattress rustled then settled once more, fearing that one subtle sound would be what would make her father snap. Though like a statue, her father never flinched.

She took a deep breath before making her final movement. Despite it being the subtlest, it made Grace’s body tremble the most. Letting her right cheek squish against the pillow, Grace finally took her sights off of her father. She began breathing deeply, allowing her eyes to fall shut another time. She could still feel her father incinerating the fuzz of her pink pajamas with his unyielding gaze and the glint of his unfaltering smile flashed within her thoughts yet again. That pale moonlight that her father stood in startled her much more than the encroaching darkness that was driven to capture Grace in its embrace once more. But until dawn broke she could only hope that the small stars above would watch over her and keep her safe from the stares of her nightmares...

[beautifulwhispersfox]

I live in the wilds of Pennsylvania, surrounded by trees, birds singing and fresh breezes, and a lake that extends for miles through the wilderness. I love to walk the paths and roadways that surround the lake and hike through the hills and valleys. I love to explore the grounds in search of little caverns or caves, I love rocks and unusual natural things. I collect the native herbs and cut fresh flowers. I live with my husband in a cottage that is near the lake. We don't see many people out this way and since the town is on the other side of the lake we a lot of times take our boat and head to town that way instead of driving the way around. If there are any other people up here they are, summer people, and only stay in the area till around Labor Day and then the land clears of any other people. We have wild animals that come around. Deer, rabbit, and even bear. We have learned to leave them be when they are near and just stay inside until they are gone. We keep all of our rubbish indoors so that we aren't feeding them and they don't come around too often.

But, it is not winter and I was wanting to pack a lunch and head out for a few hours exploring. I was walking down the roadway and enjoying the sunshine on my face and the sound of nature when about a mile from home I noticed an unknown vehicle parked. Everyone that camps up here for the summer has closed down their cabins and has gone for the summer. So I headed over to it and saw a shirtless young man sitting in the back of his van. I walked around to see if he needed any help and he was completely naked. Taking me by surprise, I said, "oh, excuse me". He was built like a brick shit house and handsome at the same time. I looked him over really good and noticed he was also quite hung.

He noticed me staring at him and a smile appeared on his face. I blushed and smiled back. "I'm sorry", I said. He said, "No worries". I went to leave and he asked if I had lived nearby and had a working phone. I said that I did and that he was welcome to use it. He was washing off and then getting dressed when I came across him and he said that he didn't realize that anyone was still up here and that he was happy that there was. His van broke down and he stayed the night in it, I could smell the smoke of a fire that had been wet down to be put out. He told me that he was going to hike around and see if he could either find someone or get to the town on the other side of the lake.

As he dressed, I noticed that he was just as hot clothed, as he was naked and was happy to escort such a good-looking man back to my place. I'll admit, the dirty thoughts were there.

My husband and I have an open relationship and always welcome a third party if that can be the case. We don't get out much because the city is so far away but we do have visitors come to stay with us. Another couple. We switch partners and just have a weekend of sex, drinking, and more sex. We have fires and have sex. We go swimming and have sex. I am a bottom, so I get to get under the other top all weekend long and it is nice to have someone else with my husband's permission. And I definitely want to get under this guy if I can.

We reached our cabin and I let my husband know who this man is and what the situation was and he led him to the phone. We told him who to call and the earliest that the tow man would be able to get out this way was 2 days from today and that he was the only mechanic in town and depending on what was needed for the van, it could take up to a week total for him to get it fixed. In the meantime, we had talked and had decided that I could have sex with him all that I wanted to if the young man was up for that kind of fucking. He was definitely straight but I have a way of getting men into bed that my husband just loves because it is always advantageous to us both.

We invited the young man to stay with us and he agreed since there were no hotels open now either. He didn't seem too concerned about our marriage and he was quite comfortable with himself. I love a confident man and he was really turning me on. He seemed to take a liking to both us and especially to me. I was in the kitchen cooking and he sat down at the table after I had told him to make himself at home. He asked if that meant to me as well. I turned and looked at him surprised and then told him, "yes". Again I blushed and he said it was cool and that he didn't have a girlfriend and could use a few good blowjobs if I were really interested. He knew that I was and I didn't have to say a word more.

We had dinner, all three of us, and then my husband retired to bed. I lit a fire in the fireplace and offered him a glass of wine or a beer. "I have liquor too if you prefer?" He said no because it gives him whiskey dick and he wanted to be hard for the occasion. I blushed again and giggled a little bit too. The excitement was rising up in me as it was rising in pants as he was thinking about having his dick sucked finally. He said it had been a while for him. I thought to myself how can such a great looking stud go without any sex? Then he proceeded to tell me as though he were reading my mind. He told me that he could see it on my face. I had to laugh this time.

"If you would like to get comfortable, please do", I told him. He told me that he is naked a lot when he is home and I assured him that would be no problem at all. He took his clothes off and folded them up neatly and put them on the sofa. I motioned for him to come to lay down on the floor and rest his body on the pillows. He did and as he walked, his manhood bounced freely back and forth as I watched and licked my lips. My mouth was watering like a flood. He noticed and commented that he appreciated the hungry looks from me. It made him feel good. He hadn't had anyone look at him like that for a long time.

We were instantly comfortable with each other. He rested himself upon the pillows and I looked at his thick cock and low hanging balls. I asked if I could taste him and instead, he motioned for me to come up to him and said, "I may be the man in this but I do have respect for you." He looked at me then moved in to kiss me. He kissed me for a long time and I rubbed his cock till it was hard as stone. It grew to a beautiful nine inches long and was thick. I looked down at and he asked if I liked it and I, of course, said "yes". He teased and said that if I played my cards right that he would also fuck me if I wanted. Like I'm going to tell him no.

We kissed a little more then I made my way down his freshly showered neck, to his stomach, his happy trail, then I took him in my mouth. He was softly moaning and exhaling as I did so. I laid my head down on his muscular, inner thigh and teased the head of his cock with my tongue. My lips went around and sucked on it and then down the shaft I went. I could hear him breathing hard and with excitement. I would go all the way down his shaft to his big, low-hanging balls, then make my way back up to the head. I wanted to take my time and enjoy this beautiful stranger. I also wanted to swallow a nice big load.

He motioned for me to move my body up close to his. All I had on was a bathrobe. He noticed that I was naked underneath and said that he thought that was hot. He reached under to grab my ass cheek in his hand and told me that he was going to fuck that for me. I loved his forthright and confidence. He was never with another guy before but he knew how to handle a hungry fuck hole.

As I stroked his cock and gave him head, he was getting more and more excited and moving his hips to meet my face as I went down on him. He stuck his fingertip in his mouth and was rubbing my asshole with it saying how he can't wait to sink himself in a nice warm pussy. It was cool of him to call it that. He let out a moan, shoved my head down on his throbbing cock, and fed me the biggest load of cum. OMG was it tasty too. I kept sucking his dick gently after he erupted. He was ready for another beer and then motioned for us to go up to his room. We climbed the stairs to his room and he shut the door behind us. Our room is on the first floor and he was on the second floor on the other side of the house. This is the room that the other top and I use when the couple comes to visit.

He dropped my robe around my ankles. I was a little shy because I am a little bigger around the waist. He told me that he loves thick chicks and that I was perfect. He teased and said that he likes a little more titty but....He instantly subdued my insecurities when he picked me up, kissed me, then laid me on the bed, spreading my knees and laying on top of me. He continued to make out with me until he was fully erect again and told me that I was in a lot of trouble because I already made him cum and that it takes him a lot longer to cum the second time around. Yeah, like I would have a problem with that, I told him and he giggled and slid himself deep inside my cock hungry hole.

He stayed that whole week and he fucked me every night.

He would visit often until he met a nice young lady and then the visits dwindled down. I'll always remember that first day we met.

by Marshall Bosley

(I do not own the rights to the pic)

[dddainuhsoar]

witch guanshan x warrior hetian

a fic au inspired by a movie that came out recently. you have 3 guesses to guess which movie it is. anyway, incomplete so read at your own risk... ^^

~2k words

traditionally, witches have been women. witches are beautiful women who ensnare their prey, and transform into docile, innocent animals - a fox, a snake, a bird - to escape in times of trouble. rather than being feared for their prowess, witches were revered. their spells brought rain for crops, their charms brought luck (or disaster; it depends which you are looking for) and their ability to convene with creatures proved more useful than horrific.

schools were set up and young girls with talent in magic were sent there to become enchantresses, sorceresses or fairies. after their studies, they were either sent to the imperial city to be part of the emperor’s court or army, or, if they chose, continue their studies to become deities. boys with talent in magic do not exist… unless they do and are incredibly apt at disguisement.

illusion spells, in fact, were the only kind of spells guanshan was any good at. he managed to trick everyone at school that he was a girl, but for what? he was failing at every other category. his parents sent him to study despite their fears that he would be discovered because they believed it would be a waste of his talent if he hadn’t gone. at first, he had thought he had talent in it too. he thought he was special, then he started studying at a school and realised he had overestimated himself.

girls were natural spell-casters. he, even though able to use magic, struggled to conjure even a single droplet of water. some of the instructors were appalled at his lack of ability, even suspected he was not truly a witch, but none ever saw through his illusion. no matter how much he sweated under their watchful gaze, trembled under their inspecting spells, or stuttered under the pressure of their inquisition, they simply never found out. sometimes, guanshan wished they would hurry and expose him already so he could quit this and go home.

after the instructors gave up trying to figure out what was wrong with guanshan, they stopped caring about him. he was too weak to teach, but too unique to be thrown out. some of the girls took pity on him and tried to help, but most just sneered at him. they weren’t too fond of people who were different. the crueller girls would play pranks, casting hexes on him that took him ages to learn how to remove.

i deserve a worse punishment, guanshan thought. he was a boy who studied, ate and slept with girls. it was immoral and lecherous. it was blasphemous, because witches were gods-to-be. he had no dishonourable thoughts about his schoolmates (he swore his right hand to it), but he was sure to punish himself at least once a day. many times, he would not be able to bear the guilt of lying next to the girls, who were flowering into women day-by-day, that he would sleep outside in the courtyard, on the stone floor, unsheltered by a roof or walls.

when one has to often sleep in such conditions, it is no surprise that they are in no shape to be practising spells in the day. it was self-sabotage, guanshan knew, and sooner or later, the instructors would throw him out. it was on one of his poorer-faring days, when he was forced to crouch till dinner as punishment for setting a tortoise’s shell on fire while the tortoise was still in there, that he met hetian, the second son of the chief of the he tribe.

guanshan’s tribe was known to produce the most fearsome witches. most of them carry on to lead battalions in the imperial army. and if there were a warrior-parallel for guanshan’s tribe, that would be the he tribe. the men from the he tribe were the most brutal and cunning warriors. they were not averse to using underhanded strategies to win a war, which made them incredibly useful to the imperial army but also risky. they were loyal to a fault to the chief of their tribe, and even the emperor was careful when it came to dealing with him.

a few members of the he tribe were visiting to train with the witches. since many witches would end up serving in the imperial army along with the warriors of the he tribe, it was a natural idea to have the two groups get used to each other as part of their training. together, they were invincible.

initially, guanshan was determined to ignore the boy and focus on building a shelter for the tortoise he was tasked to protect from the blazing sun he himself was being scorched by. he was given a large wooden bucket to fill with water by his teachers. once he had it filled, he could then put his tortoise in so it would stay hydrated. they wanted him to practise his water conjuration spells, he understood that, but he couldn’t understand why at the expense of an innocent tortoise. when his fingers ached from snapping and his throat parched from muttering the spell, he finally looked up at hetian, who had been staring at him the entire time from under his paper umbrella.

it was nice of hetian to shade guanshan from the sun (even though guanshan desperately wished he would go away before his teachers came to check on him) so he decided it was possible the young visitor would be willing to help him get water from the well in the neighbouring courtyard.

“you’ll have to show me,” hetian said. “this place is huge, i think i’ll get lost.”

guanshan glared at him. “just take that path to the left. it’s in that courtyard. i cannot leave this spot.”

“why not?”

“what do you mean ‘why not’? i’m being punished!”

“you’ll suffer a worse punishment if you let me get lost in this maze of an institution,” hetian said. “as it is, i’m already lost. i can’t find my way back to my hall.”

for a moment, guanshan wanted to throw the bucket at him. but they were too close to each other and guanshan was crouching so if he wanted to throw it, he had to throw upwards, which meant when it dropped back down, it might hit him in its trajectory. with a growl, he got to his feet. he carefully placed the tortoise in the bucket. it was barely moving, and he wondered if it was dead already.

“i’ll lead you back to your rooms after i fetch water for my tortoise,” guanshan offered, proud of his valiance. he could use the guest as an excuse if he bumped into one of his instructors.

the young man was handsome. unlike his tribe, hetian had pale skin and a lean build. he was taller than guanshan but he didn’t look much bigger, and guanshan was supposed to be a girl. hetian had his long raven hair half-up, tied with a red cloth ribbon. his cheeks were pink from walking under the heat of the sun, and his face glistened with a thin sheen of sweat. when he smiled, his gratefulness reached his eyes. it was the first time anyone had given guanshan a genuine smile since he stepped into this school. maybe that fact, coupled with the angry rays of the sun cooking his brain and that he hadn’t slept a wink last night, caused the skip in guanshan’s heartbeat.

“my name is hetian,” the young man introduced himself as they made their way to the well. “second son of the chief of the he tribe.”

“i know who you are,” guanshan said, grimacing. “you are our esteemed guest.”

“so you knew that and yet you made me wait to have your attention,” hetian mock-scolded. “is your tortoise an esteemed guest as well, then?”

guanshan nearly smiled at the quip. “this tortoise is hundreds and hundreds of years old, it is our senior in many ways.”

hetian gave him a studying look. “i have heard that witches feel an affinity to creatures, but i imagined more glamorous animals.”

“well, even though i cannot conjure up a lick of water and i have red hair,” guanshan said, gesturing airily to his head, “i have always communicated better with aquatic animals.”

the young chief-son laughed. “what does the colour of your hair have to do with the animals you commune with?”

“red,” guanshan shrugged. “it is the colour of flames, the opposite of water.”

“much of you is the opposite,” hetian said, helping guanshan lift the bucket onto the lip of the well.

“of what?” guanshan asked as he tied a secure knot to the handle of the bucket with the rope.

at the exact same time hetian answered, “of a witch,” guanshan yelped, “wait, my tortoise!” as hetian had already begun to lower the bucket into the well.

guanshan stretched into the well to reach for the bucket, which was ridiculously thoughtless because hetian could have simply pulled the bucket up again. doubtlessly, he lost his balance, was lifted off the ground by the off-balance and started a nosedive into the well. at least his desperation to save the tortoise forced a spell that levitated the tortoise safely into his arms out of him. mid-way in his descent, he felt two arms envelope him and immediately after, they plunged into the icy water.

water was coming out of his nose, eyes and mouth when guanshan resurfaced. he coughed and sputtered and hugged the struggling tortoise tightly to his chest with one arm. when he kicked his legs, he hit hetian who was behind him.

“are you all right?” he demanded. his voice bounced off the walls of the well as he finally let go of the tortoise to spin around in the water and face his unfortunate companion.

much to guanshan’s surprise, hetian laughed. it, too, bounced off the walls of the well. it sounded like magic. guanshan could feel the tortoise swim out from between them to scrabble at the opposite wall.

“well, seducer,” hetian proclaimed in between laughter, “you better get us out of this well.”

it was dark all the way down here and guanshan could barely see the face he desperately wished to see. he wanted to see what hetian looked like when he laughed till he could not speak, wanted to see how his long dark hair must be plastered to his face like seaweed, wanted to see the look on his face to know what he meant by putting his hands on guanshan’s waist. guanshan murmured a spell and despite there being too much moisture in the air to summon a flame, a ball of fire burst into existence above their heads. guanshan could see now. hetian could see now. or at least guanshan hoped he could.

“this is inappropriate,” guanshan muttered. “i mean,” he gulped as he studied hetian’s face. “a girl and a boy, who are almost of age, alone in a tight space together… it’s… scandalous…” even as he said it, he could feel the thin material of his clothes cling to the straight lines of his body, he could feel how his chest was flat against hetian’s own.

“we’re not alone,” hetian whispered. the fire above them casted the structure of hetian’s sharp features in stark relief. “we have an esteemed guest in our midst. right behind you. trying to climb the walls.” the scratching of the tortoise’s claws against stone suddenly became louder to guanshan, who laughed in response.

hetian still believed he was a girl. that meant even though he was caught off-guard by the fall and drenched to the bone, his illusion hadn’t wavered. his disguise was more powerful than he could ever imagine, and yet he half-wished it wasn’t.

guanshan pushed away from hetian and waded to his tortoise. he held the reptile gently, whispering something to it. it soon calmed down and waded closer to guanshan’s chest.

“i don’t have magic that can get us out of here,” guanshan explained sheepishly. “but i can send my flame up and hopefully someone will pass by and see it.”

“you mean you cannot turn into a bird or something that can fly?” hetian asked.

“no,” guanshan blushed, ashamed of his lacking abilities. “i have never been successful at full transfiguration.” even his disguise as a woman was enabled by a spell of illusion, not transfiguration.

hetian didn’t say anything. and later guanshan would wonder what he did or said to trigger it, but now hetian floated over, took guanshan’s face in his hands and kissed him deeply. it took the person outside the well above them three tries to get their attention. when they were finally lifted out of the well by levitation spells casted by two separate instructors, hetian was immediately herded away to dry off in his rooms, and guanshan was ordered to return to the students’ quarters and stay there for the rest of the day without food.

with the hefty tortoise resting on his chest, and his clothes drying off by his trusty fire-light, guanshan lay on his bed and replayed the kiss over and over again in his mind.

[petri808]

Hauntober prompt Familiars

Bakudeku requested by @diablothepuss their idea + the Latin is from Google translate so take it for what it is 😂

In his class at the UA academy for magic users, witch-in-training Izuku Midoriya was one of the top students and loved by the teachers for his positive attitude. The school had 3 divisions, witches (spell casters), familiars (magical creatures), and diviner’s (psychics), however, the first two divisions worked the closest with each other. Familiars-in-training were paired with a witch-in-training by the end of the first month of school once teachers had assessed compatibility.

How that worked never made any sense to familiar Katsuki Bakugou, because as far as he was concerned, he had nothing in common with his witch! Not in personality or interests, while he was organized and calculated, the witch was a sloppy mess. They’d said it had more to do with innate magic levels, the pair needed to have similar power, blah, blah, blah. Bottom line, is he was paired with a skinny, nerdy little weakling who was too damn positive for his taste!

Katsuki was the strongest in his division and therefore other familiars either idolized him or hated him for it. He didn’t really care what anyone else thought about him, but loved the attention. Deemed the Bakusquad by onlookers, Katsuki had four familiars that hung around him outside of classes. They were his pack, and he was the leader.

“Good morning Kacchan!” Izuku smiles as he arrives at class and takes a seat next to the familiar. Always the optimist.

Katsuki had given up fighting after the first year over the nickname because the guy refused to stop using. So, he came up with his own for the mousy witch. “Deku,” he grunts back.

The teacher goes over the assignment of the day, which was a new spell for the witches to learn. It was an advanced level spell that would allow them to alter their familiars form. For instance, make them bigger or smaller, or heighten one of their physical senses such as increased eye sight. It’ll definitely be a handy spell to use on Katsuki who’s familiar form was of a hand-sized fire salamander.

“Remember,” the teacher drives home his point, “it’s less about the words and more about what your heart is asking for. You must be focused on your goal. Any distraction could severely alter the spell, that’s what makes these advanced level casting.”

“Oi, don’t be making me weird like you, got it!” Katsuki barks at Izuku, then shifts into his salamander form to await the witches spell.

Too bad Izuku was very much distracted that morning. He thought he was hiding it well, but hadn’t planned on them working such a difficult spell either. ‘Breath, just breath Izu. Kacchan doesn’t suspect anything and we wanna keep it that way, right?’ “Don’t worry,” he swallows thickly but keeps his smile bright. “I’ll just stick to something easy.”

He readies his wand and slowly repeats the words.

“lunam et flores flore surgentibus” (moon rise and flowers bloom )

“expand super maria navis surgentibus undis”(seas expand on surging waves)

“auribus percipite incrementum ego invocabo te” (harken growth I call upon thee)

All around the classroom, incantations were being uttered, and familiars hit with glowing light as they transform. As for Katsuki, the spells seems to be working. His form was getting larger, the bright light growing around him... but not in the way either men had expected.

When the light fades, Izuku’s eyes widen and silence takes hold for on the table sat Katsuki— a fluffy pink, basketball sized creature known as a Moonly. He’d mistakenly created something cute! “I-I’m sorry Kacchan.”

“What the fuck did you do to me!” Katsuki bounced in place, his tone angry, but it was hard to take such an adorable creature seriously.

The silence in the room is broken when members of the Bakusquad rush over, torn between concern for their leader and laughing because the familiar was just so darn cute!

“Stop laughing you damn extras! Nerd you better change me back right this second! What the fuck were you thinking about?!” But the bouncing pink fluff ball only elicits more laughter mixed with ooh’s and aww how cutes! “Deku! Fucking change me back!”

Izuku was in too much shock to respond. This was the worst mistake he’d ever made when casting a spell. So, while the Bakusquad group tries to calm their de-facto leader down, the man can only stand there, bright red and sputtering. His heart had betrayed him, conjuring up a cute creature... just like what he thought of Katsuki— cute. Why a Moonly, Izuku had no idea, but now how does he fix this?!

Luckily, the teacher comes over and turns Katsuki back to his normal self while scolding Izuku at the same time. “I warned you Mr. Midoriya. You had to have a clear and concise vision in order for the spell to work.”

“I know,” Izuku hangs his head. “I should have stopped and waited since I’m distracted today.”

“By what?” The question triggers a deepening of the witches blush which the teacher immediately interprets as nothing he was interested in hearing. “Nevermind, just the next time you try this spell, just make sure to follow instructions.”

“Yes, Mr. Aizawa.”

Class is ended for the day, and as soon as they’re released, Izuku bee lines it to the door so he can run back to his dorm and hide. The Bakusquad pulls at their leader to go to lunch, but the man pushes them off and heads over to his witch and manages to corner Izuku right outside the building.

“Oi!” He pushes the smaller witch against the wall and holds him there. “What the fuck happened back there? You never lose your cool that badly.”

“I’m sorry Kacchan. I-I just had something on my mind.”

“Yeah obviously, cause you turned me into a stupid stuffed animal! I’m not an idiot Deku. I know how the spell works. Now what were you distracted by?”

“N-nothing important...” Katsuki’s piercing red eyes and the pulsing vein in his neck cause Izuku to swallow thickly. “I swear it’ll never happen again.”

“It won’t.” He grips tighter to the man’s shirt, pulling him away from the wall and down the sidewalk. “Cause we’re gonna practice it.”

“W-Wha— Where are you taking me?!”

“My room. Maybe we need to get better acquainted...”

[queen-of-my-goofball-army]

Fruits Basket HCs

If you haven’t been able to tell from my blog, I REALLY love Fruits Basket. I have this immense love for these characters and I want to share the different headcanons that I have for each of these fantastic characters. I’m going to cover a lot of ground so I apologize if this becomes really long. To make this easier for myself this first part is just going to be my six favorite characters (Momiji, Tohru, Kyo, Kakeru, Hatori and Hatsuharu).

Momiji: 

* The mental health side of things for Momiji is that in my non-professional medical opinion (to quote the original show) he has really high levels of ADHD. He learned to combat this by taking gymnastics lessons as a young boy while everyone else was doing karate he was learning to be bouncing ball. 

*This one is a pretty much canon one but I love this idea; Momiji is genderfluid. I love the idea of Momiji hanging around Ritsu and learning about fashion from them. I also just really love the idea of Momiji in a cute little skirt with shorts underneath (don’t judge me I just really love the idea of it.) 

*Number one touchy friend!! He’s constantly a ball of energy and will hug and cling to all of his friends if they indulge him. He loves affection both giving it and receiving it.  

*He is surprisingly a really good baker!! I love the idea of him making friendship cupcakes for Tohru after everything happened just to thank her for all her help (She wouldn’t accept them but offer to share them with him instead.) 

*He learned violin from Ayame. I like to think that out of all the Sohma’s he is the most musically inclined. If you want to learn how to play an instrument go to Aya he’ll help you out fam. 

*How he learned German and started using that as his main language was in elementary school right after what happened with his mom happened (I’m trying to keep this as non-spoilery as possible so that my friends can read this too). He wanted something that reminded him of her but wasn’t painful. So he decided to learn another language and Hatori helped him. 

*He is probably one of the most likely to spoil his future children. He’ll give them the childhood that he was never technically given. If those children wanted something they were going to get it whether or not it was their birthday they want it. Plus he has the money to get them whatever they want!! 

Tohru: 

*So space cadet Tohru is canon and I am of the personal belief that a little bit of ADD which is why she always needs Yuki’s help with school. Most of these HCs are going to be a little bit mental health related mostly because that’s how I see them. 

*If Tohru had the ability to go to college it would be to become a professional chef. She loves cooking for other people and making people happy. Professional chefs to me are the types of people that love to make others happy which is why she cooks for others. 

*She is definitely the hug friend. What is the hug friend you may ask? It is a person that can give the best hugs. She is constantly getting hugs from Uo-chan and Hana-chan and to me she just seems the type that would give the best hugs in the entire world. 

*She has always been interested in being in a relationship someday. When she was little she loved Disney movies and would fantasize about one day finding her own personal Prince Charming. 

*At first in dating Kyo, Tohru gets flustered by EVERYTHING. This poor girl is always blushing around the love of her life. 

*Her favorite subject in school will always be cooking but she is surprisingly good at history!! She loves learning about the past mostly because she is one of the few people that found it interesting. 

*As a mom she is the most doting parent, the type that kids get embarrassed by at sleepovers. 

Kyo: 

*My first HC for our favorite cat boi is that he has autism. Hear me out, when I was in middle school I struggled immensely when it came to relating to people and understanding how they felt. I had undiagnosed aspergers at the time and found that he was one of the few characters that wanted to be better at dealing with his emotions and people. Having that relatability now that I’m older has been a huge help. 

*The most surprising HC that I have about Kyo is that he loves to write. Usually it’s just little things that irritate him throughout the day. It’s how he learned to officially get his anger calmed down so that he wouldn’t yell anymore once Hajime and his kids were born. 

*As a kid Kyo never had ice cream. It’s the same thing with the pancakes where he had never had sweets that wasn’t fruit. Tohru is appalled by this and one of their first dates was to get him to try ice cream (his favorite is mint chocolate chip) 

*Growing up he was alone a lot but I think that he would find companionship in books and literature. I feel like he’d be really good at school like in the original where we see him pouring over books to study. (The best way to get him to do well is of course a little competition.) 

*Kyo is a hella overprotective dad once his kids are born. This is obvious but if he has any daughters those future boyfriends, run just run. 

*Once the curse is broken he is constantly trying to make up for the years where he wasn’t able to get physical affection. After he gets over his own flustered tsundere habits with Tohru they became easily the closest couple. He finds that he loves having his hair pet (if he purrs he’ll deny it until the end of time)  

*I think that out of all my favorites Kyo would be the best listener. You got a problem, no matter how stupid it is, Kyo will do his damndest to help you out. That’s just who he is especially when it comes to those he loves. 

Kakeru: 

*Kakeru’s mental health theory is that he has ADHD just like Momiji combined with dyslexia so he sometimes has a hard time reading things and needs help understanding what exactly he’s looking at for homework. 

*Him and Kimi always start prank wars that could go on FOREVER. If nobody stops them they can just go at each other for days. Eventually either Yuki or Machi will get too exhausted of their antics and force them to stop. These prank wars usually happen about once a month on the second week. They all fear this time of the month and whenever it happens it usually lasts for about three days. 

*Definite anime lover this boi!! He grew up watching the classics and it’s just something that stuck with him. 

*Before he became chaotic Kakeru TM he always hid this part of his personality but now that he’s older he is very open about his love for anime. 

*He wasn’t close to Machi until after she was kicked out of the family house. Before then he was almost indifferent towards her existence but when that happened he realized that he wanted to make her feel better whether she wanted it or not. 

*He is the best cuddler fight me on this. I feel like once you got him calmed down he would always be down for cuddling his S\O. 

*This one is pretty common amongst the fandom judging by how many people ship him with Yuki but I think that he’s not bisexual he’s pansexual he just loves people!! 

Hatori: 

*I don’t have a mental health HC for Hatori really other than PTSD (which let’s face it almost all of this cast of characters has.) 

*Before he met Kana he knew next to nothing about popular culture. His music taste was stuck in the 50′s and to her that was an absolute travesty!! Who hadn’t heard of Queen, Elton John or David Bowie?! She made it her goal to get him into modern things so that he could understand her. At the time he didn’t really understand a lot of the things that she liked. However, once she left him he learned to appreciate modern music and film. 

*Something that I really love about Hatori is the thought that he would be a fan of musical theater. It’s something that not a whole lot of people know mainly Shigure and Ayame and Aya always gets him tickets when a show he likes comes to town. 

*He can’t cook to save his life!! Literally the type of person that would somehow burn water and he doesn’t have the time to cook everyday but usually Momiji will bring him food that he makes. 

*Definitely a romantic at heart no matter how much the idea of love has hurt him in the past. He loves making Mayu happy at random intervals. From buying her random bouquets of flowers to planning things on a larger scale he just loves making her happy. 

*As a parent he’s the type to definitely be overprotective especially when they aren’t feeling well. His kid fainted at school? He’s already there trying to find out what went wrong and keep them at home with him for a few days until they get Dr. Tori’s clean bill of health. 

*As much as he bitches and moans about Ayame and Shigure’s annoying tendencies he couldn’t ask for two better best friends. \

Hatsuharu: 

*Mental health HC is that he’s bipolar thanks to the other dark personality even though most of the time he’s white it’s something that after everything happens Hatori insists he gets an official diagnosis of. 

*He loves grunge rock. The first time he discovered Nirvana Kurt Cobain became his instant hero. Not a way to live his life but someone that he was inspired by. His second favorite band is All Time Low (I’ve never heard any of their stuff this one is for my best friend who is an absolute Haru-stan) 

*He got his tattoo as his own way of rebelling against his family order. I think that his parents (we only really ever hear of his mom) being strict on him. That’s where the multiple piercings came from as well. Whenever he would hit a low point before middle school he would get a new one. 

*He is actually a really good cook and entirely capable of taking care of himself since his parents are often too busy for him. 

*He got into gaming by accidentally seeing Shigure playing a dating sim (Fight me on this one I dare you say that Shigure the pervy bastard doesn’t play these things) 

*He is definitely the romantic type as we see him bringing Rin flowers to cheer her up. He might be a little bit stiff at first and awkward but once he gets used to the person you bet your ass he’ll just cling to you as we see with Yuki much to his everlasting annoyance. 

*He’s an amazing artist!! He loves to draw just about anything that he can get his hands on. It’s something that he does now when he hits a low point instead of wrecking things he learned the proper way of coping with his problems. 

Whew!! Sorry about the length on this guy but I really wanted to do this while waiting for the dub to catch up. I will make more if people want more of them!! 

[sloanerisette]

Jyoumi Challenge Day #4: Flowers

Like Day 3′s oneshot, this one is meant to be something small and cute about their early relationship! Hope you all enjoy!

The tip of Joe’s pencil repeatedly tapped against the paper as his eyes started to lose focus from the Biology homework he was focused on. He had zoned out some five minutes ago, the boy deep in thought over something else. He had already started to chew on the inside of his cheek, before just about jumping from his seat when he heard the door close.

“What’s up, Joe?” his brother asked, and Joe calmed down once he realized who it was— and once he actually had a moment to relax from the sudden surprise.

“Oh, hey Jim. Nothing. At least not besides you freaking me out too much. Trying to concentrate on this assignment,” he said, turning his body in his chair to look over at his brother, who was leaning against the wall.

“Mom called and wanted to let us know that her and dad are probably going to be home late tonight— hospital is really busy apparently.”

“Oh, I hope everything is ok,” Joe frowned.

“It is, I’m pretty sure. Just a lot going on. I’m probably going to get started on my own homework, but I wanted to let you know. We can probably go and pick something up to eat later if you want? My treat.”

Joe nodded, “Sounds good, thanks,” he said, turning back to his homework, but nearly immediately turned back to Jim, watching as he started to leave the room, “Actually, can I ask you for a favor…?”

His words were shy, embarrassed, even, and a light flush had started to tinge pink across his cheeks, Joe rubbing the back of his neck.

Jim stopped, then turned to look at his younger brother, confusing flashing across his face for just a moment, before grinning.

“Need some advice for your girlfriend?” he asked, folding his arms, and Joe turned a bright shade of red, looking to the floor if only to avoid how satisfied Jim seemed in those moments.

“Uh, yeah…” he said, scratching the back of his head before sighing, his shoulders slumping. “You see, Mimi is just… well, she’s great, of course, but she’s just been extra supportive of nice recently because of all my exams… and I just want to do something for her. To just let her know how much I appreciate all of her and to just show her I care just as much as she cares about me. And I guess I was wondering if you had any ideas.”

Jim’s grin went even wider, and Joe felt a sinking feeling in his stomach that left him wondering if this was a good idea at all.

“Hmm…”

Joe was silent, waiting with bated breath, before Jim snapped his fingers, pushing himself off the wall.

“I think the best thing you can do, first of all, is not worry. You already impressed her, right? She’ll love anything you get her.”

He appreciated the pep talk, and he did know his brother was right, but god did he just want to wow Mimi. He was still thinking about that bento box the other day. It was perfect, everything he loved, and she gave it to him right when he needed the pick-me-up.

“Well I still want to get her something perfect. I don’t want her to… not… be impressed…” he sighed.

A sad, but sympathetic smile came onto Jim’s face, “You told me about how she came to visit you at cram school? She’ll love anything you do for her, man. I think just something small and simple to let her know you’re thinking about her. I think that’ll be the best. What’s something that reminds you of her?”

It didn’t take long for Joe to think of a rather long list.

“Pink, cowboy hats, cowboy boots, dresses, flowers, jewelry…”

That’s when it dawned on him.

“Flowers! She loves flowers! And I can get her ones that look like Palmon and Lillymon! That’s perfect!”

He immediately hopped up from his chair, nearly tumbling over and having to prop his chair back up in front of his desk, before bowing his head to his older brother.

“Thanks so much, Jim. I really owe you one.”

“Hey, don’t mention it. But if you are gonna go out to get her flowers now, maybe you can pick up something for us to eat?” he asked, “Still my treat, don’t worry.”

“Of course! I’ll make sure it won’t take too long,” Joe promised as Jim handed him some money. After, Joe quickly sped to the door, a man on a mission.

Thankfully it was still early enough for places to be open, and even better than that, he knew there was a good florist right near Mimi’s apartment building. It wasn’t as good as the stuff he had seen from Sora’s mother, but Joe also knew he wouldn’t have been able to easily afford one of the arrangements, and even getting from there to Mimi’s apartment would’ve been a herculean task. As he started to approach the elevator at her building, though, Joe couldn’t stop himself from smiling. Plenty of lilies that he hoped she would like, as well as an array of sakura and plenty of other flowers that represented affection and love (and there really were a lot of them).

Oh, he couldn’t wait to see the look on Mimi’s face when she saw him at the door with these. Tired as he was, he couldn’t keep the smile off his face, just about bouncing on the balls of his feet as he entered the elevator, making sure to hold onto the vase as tight as possible. The last thing he needed was to be a klutz and drop it before he even got to her door.

He had just about burst out into a sprint as soon as the doors opened, making his way to the Tachikawa apartment, and as soon as he was outside the door, he gently set the vase down, clearing his throat, and then knocked on the door.

“One miiiiiiiiinute!” he heard the voice of Mimi’s mother call out, able to hear her footsteps pad over to the door, smiling as she opened the door.

“Oh, Joe, honey, its so nice to see you! What brings you all the way out here? Did cram school just let out?” she asked.

“Oh, uh, hi, Mrs. Tachikawa! Nice to see you!” he said, bowing quickly, “Is Mimi home by any chance? I just had something I wanted to give her real quick, if that’s alright, ma’am.”

“She is! Let me go get her, feel free to come in! No need to wait outside in the cold!” she said sweetly, Joe nodding, picking up the vase, and walking in backwards, toeing out of his shoes, and waiting at the door.

“Mimi! Someone’s here to see you!” Mimi’s mother called out in a sing-song voice, Joe sucking in a deep breath as he steeled himself.

“Oh, Joe!” the young woman squealed happily, running to her boyfriend, who quickly turned around, holding up the vase, causing the brunette to stop in her tracks.

“H-Hey, Mimi,” he started, already blushing, “I, um… got these for you.”

Her eyes were wide and sparkling, already feeling them get misty just at the sight of the gesture.

“You got me these? Really?”

“Yeah! I just wanted you to know… how much I’ve been thinking about you lately,” he told her. The smile on her face had him smiling just as much, Joe’s heart feeling full to burst.

“Oh, Joe…” she said quietly, reaching out slowly to touch one of the flowers. “They’re beautiful…”

“I-I know you said I didn’t have to do anything for you just because you brought me lunch the other day… but I just wanted to make sure you knew that…” he trailed off, sucking in a breath as the boy tried to steady himself, “…You know, even if I’m busy and don’t always have time to be around, I’m still thinking of you.”

He could only barely see her through the veritable field of flowers he had gotten her, but just seeing how happy she seemed left Joe on cloud nine.

“You really got me all of these?” she asked, and he nodded.

“Yeah! I know its not much, but I thought flowers could be nice.”

“Not much? Joe, you came all the way here to give me flowers! I’m the luckiest girl in the world,” she said, unable to help but swoon for her boyfriend.

And seeing her expression, Joe felt like the luckiest guy in the world.

“Mama? Can I take Joe to my room?” she asked, Satoe Tachikawa peaking her head out from the kitchen.

“Sure, sweetie! Joe, honey, would you like to stay for dinner?” she asked kindly.

“Oh, that’s very kind of you, ma’am, but unfortunately I can’t stay long. I have to pick up dinner for my brother and I, still,” he said, seeing the two women frown.

“Oh, that’s too bad. We’ll just have to have you over soon enough!”

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to drag him over so we can make something great for him!” Mimi said, grinning at Joe, who was now turning red, before Mimi’s mom went back to cooking, Mimi taking that as her cue to grab onto Joe’s wrist and drag him along into her room.

It was the first time he had ever been in her room, which left Joe feeling more awkward and nervous, and he just hoped he wouldn’t implode— or have her father shout at him for being in her room.

It was fitting that there was plenty of pink and plenty of stuffed animals all over her bed. It all seemed so perfectly Mimi and he couldn’t help but find it— and her— adorable.

“O-Oh! Let me set this down!” he blurted out suddenly, stepping over to her desk and setting it down, holding his hands out carefully, as if afraid it would fall over at any moment, before standing next to her.

“I wanted to get some flowers that would remind you of Palmon and Lillymon, too. I made sure to really learn what all of the flowers represented so I could find the perfect ones,” he explained.

“I love them! Now whenever I miss Palmon I can look over at my beautiful flowers!”

“Yeah, and, uh, like I said, I asked the florist about the flowers, too!” he said, taking a step over to her desk, Mimi following as she still held his hand, “Sunflowers because they represent adoration and loyalty, the morning glory because it represents bonds of, um… l-love. The bellflower is, um…”

He stopped, Mimi stirred from her overwhelming feelings as she looked over to see Joe redder than she was sure she’d ever seen him before. She gently set a hand on his shoulder.

“Is everything ok?” she asked softly.

“Y-Yeah…” he finally choked out, “It’s just… I don’t want to sound too cheesy or embarrassing.”

Mimi frowned, “You never could be. It really means the world that you’d learn this much to pick out the perfect flowers for me.”

“Really?” he asked in disbelief, to which she nodded.

“Of course! So what’s that flower mean?” she asked, pointing to the bellflower.

“Endless love…” he admitted sheepishly, ducking his head, “and then the bluebell is gratitude,” he said.

“So you got all these flowers because they made you think of me?” she asked, looking up at him with a curious tilt of her head.

Joe scratched the back of his head, “Well, yeah. That shouldn’t be much of a surprise,” he said, a nervous chuckle bubbling from his throat, one that left Mimi feeling light.

“You’re so wonderful, Joe,” she told him.

“Y-You are, too, Mimi. And, uh, you really do like this all?” he asked, glancing over to the vase again.

“Of course!” she chirped, voice light and lilting as whenever she got excited, “I love it! I’m going to take such incredible care of them, and whenever you’re stuck at cram school and I miss you, I can look at them and think about you and Palmon! It really is perfect.”

There had been a few knots still deep in Joe’s stomach, but seeing just how in awe she was managed to rid him of them. He did good— and he really did owe Jim for this.

Silence had washed over Mimi’s room, until she finally tugged at his sleeve, looking at him with big doe eyes.

“Are you sure you can’t stay for dinner?” she asked and Joe slowly shook his head, sighing after.

“I really wish I could, but I already promised Jim I’d bring food back after I gave you your flowers.”

Now Mimi was frowning, “Well… can I walk you to the elevator?” she asked, and Joe couldn’t stop himself from smiling now.

“Yeah, of course!” he said, and Mimi quickly grabbed onto his hand, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek before dragging him out of her room, Joe’s free hand moving to his cheek, the boy starting to smile.

“Sorry I couldn’t stay longer, Mrs. Tachikawa, but whatever you’re making smells delicious! I hope you all have a delicious dinner!”

“Thank you, dear!” she called back, a lightbulb going off in Mimi’s head as she quickly sped off into the kitchen. A look of confusion graced Joe’s face, all the way to when she popped back to his side a few moments later, hands behind her back, with a mischievous, trademark Mimi Tachikawa grin.

“Ready to go?”

Joe stared at her for a moment, silent, before slowly nodding, “…Yeah.”

“I’ll be right back, mama! Just gonna walk Joe to the elevator!”

Now outside, Mimi was just about skipping next to her boyfriend as the two walked, enjoying the silence, all the way up until they reached the elevator.

“I guess I should probably go and grab dinner, now. I really am sorry I couldn’t stay longer,” he sighed, and Mimi shook her head.

“You don’t need to apologize! I’m just happy I got to see you at all!” she told him, before holding a small container out for him. Joe paused for a moment, before taking it.

“What’s this?”

“I asked mama if you could have some of what she was making!”

“What is it?” he asked, holding it up to get a better look.

“Kimchi fried rice with whipped cream and strawberries!”

Joe looked at her for a few moments, before quickly opening up the container to see that it was exactly what she told him. After staring at it for a bit, he silently closed the container.

“Mimi…”

“No, it’s really good, honest,” she insisted.

“Ok, I’ll take your word for it,” he said with a soft laugh.

“I’ll talk to you later.”

“Y-Yeah, I’ll talk to you later.”

“And until then I’ll just keep looking at the beautiful flowers my very thoughtful boyfriend got me,” she said, completely relishing in his blush, watching him get in the elevator, excited to ignore her homework in favor of looking at her flowers.

[poppibranchlover]

Nine Lives, One Fight - Part 23

The story: Deep in the forest of Troll Town, there lies a mysterious tiny purple mushroom that has a secret magical ability. King Peppy calls this mushroom forbidden for all Trolls to go near it. One day, while Branch is out in the woods doing his survival research studying, he encounters it and, not knowing it is a regular mushroom, decides to harvest it and bring it home. But in the next morning, its magic effects transform him into a small blue cat! After being sent to the animal pound, his girlfriend, Poppy, finds him and decides to adopt him, although not recognizing it is Branch. Desperate to finish his research project due for a special event invented by Poppy, Branch is forced to learn how to behave like a pet cat and must figure out what caused him to become one.

You already seen what had happened in Part 22. Now get ready for Part 23!:

Branch bravely raced through the woods with great speed, with Wiggles riding on his back. The bunny whooped and hollered enthusiastically as he enjoyed the ride back to Troll Village. The wind blew between the trees of the forest as they passed by some woodland creatures who peeked out to see their new hero.

“Whoa, this cat is so brave!” a firefly whispered to his partner.

“Look how he runs with a rabbit on his back!” a squirrel gushed with awe.

“I hope he doesn’t get me!” a bird chirped, just before Branch almost playfully lunged at her. Frightened, the bird flew upwards.

“Sorry, pal,” Branch said kindly, turning to look at the little bird for a moment. “I’m friendly, so I won’t eat you.”

The bird tweeted with relief from a tree. Then, Branch and Wiggles changed direction and continued sprinting to Troll Village. The animals understood that Branch can understand their language because of his cat form and went to hide in the forest, settling themselves for the night.

Not long after, Branch and Wiggles finally arrived at the village, where it is empty in the dark and everyone already went to sleep in their pods. As they narrowly avoid getting caught by another Animal Control officer along the way, they sneaked their way past him until they approached a series of pods high above them.

“Whew! Here we are, kid! Home sweet home!” Wiggles said, hopping out of Branch’s back to take a closer look. They noticed a familiar-looking pink pod in the distance.

“We made it!” Branch said, gazing at Poppy’s pod. “Poppy must be worried about me now.”

“And you have every right to be worried too,” Wiggles replied. “You missed her because you spent your entire day running around in the woods and looking for help.”

“Yeah, I get it. That was me before,” Branch said, bending down to the rabbit. “But now, I want to be safe with my owner first. It’s definitely for the best of me.”

“Why?” asked Wiggles.

Branch looked at him in the eyes. “I should be heading back now,” he explained. “The Animal Control are always patrolling every night, and I don’t want to put myself in great risk. We’ll leave by tomorrow.”

Wiggles’ eyes widened with shock. “Tomorrow? But that means we’ll be in full animal mode! There won’t be more time now.” He looked suddenly worried. “What if you become ‘full cat’? What’s gonna happen?”

Branch patted the rabbit’s head with one paw. “There will be enough time when we find the mushroom at dawn,” he said gently. “Don’t worry, Wiggles. I promise I’ll give you a bunch of carrots as a reward before we set off.”

“Really?!” Wiggles wagged his tail. He liked the idea of Branch rewarding him for his support. He hopped around with excitement. “Oh, that would be an excellent treat!” he squealed. “My kids will be so proud that you brought some for us!”

“Yeah, I knew your kids will also like the sound of that too!” Branch replied. “You should really appreciate that!”

Wiggles looked at Poppy’s pod, noticing how long they’ve been talking. “Should you be heading for home now?” he asked.

“Oh, right!” Branch said, realizing what he had meant. “I better get back before Poppy wakes up.” As he began to move, he quickly turned back to Wiggles. “Oh, and before I go, I want to give you this.”

Wiggles stepped back as Branch slowly approached him, as if he was about to eat him again. 

“Hey, what are you doing? I thought you’re not supposed to-” he said, but he knew he didn’t have time to explain because Branch opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue, bringing it forward to Wiggles’ cheek.

“What’s going on? What’s he doing to me?” the bunny asked before he felt something ticklish on his cheek. Instead of eating him whole, Branch licked at Wiggles’ face, making the little critter laugh.

“Hahaha! Okay, kid! Cut it out!” Wiggles said as he laughed and tumbled to the ground. “You’re messing my fur! Hahahaha! You’re the best cat I’ve ever met!” He continued giggling as Branch playfully kept licking at his face, practically smothering him with kitty kisses.

After a while, Branch stopped licking and looked at his friend with a smile. Wiggles smiled back to as the two of them looked at each other for a moment. Finally, Branch started to run towards Poppy’s house. He turned back to his little bunny friend and said “Goodnight, Wiggles! I’ll see you tomorrow!”

Wiggles happily waved back to him. “Goodnight, Branch!” he said before setting a course for his burrow. “Take care!”

Branch ran down the grass and climbed up a tree to get to the pink pod. He made a jump for the wall of the house and managed to make his way to the pod’s little pet door. As he barged into the tiny door, Branch looked around at Poppy’s room, glad to be home with his owner at last.

Branch liked the fact that Poppy’s pod is really cozy, even when he usually visits her house in Troll form. He was so eager to spend more time with her...just for now. He strolled along the floor when he spotted a familiar-looking blue ball of yarn in front of him.

Branch smiled. It’s just the thing to make him feel comfortable! He’d play with his beloved cat toy; a ball of yarn!

He trotted over to the blue ball of yarn and looked down at it, carefully stepping closer to it so he can have the sensation to kick it. Once he was already near the ball, he batted it with his paw, sending it rolling further away from him.

Branch practically burst with anticipation as he chased after the ball across the floor. He could almost taste the ball in his mouth as he ran to where the ball of yarn is rolling.

The blue ball rolled to a stop near Poppy’s table as Branch sprinted after it. He caught the ball by pouncing on it. Then he fell on his back and waved his paws around, playing with his toy and laughing.

The ball of yarn bounced around his paws as Branch played with it. He couldn’t help resisting his cat instincts because he knew it felt wonderful to be a cat living in a comfy house, and he was enjoying himself.

Branch spent a few seconds of playing until he heard familiar quiet sobbing. The yarn ball landed on his paws as he turned to where the source of the cries are coming from. “Huh?”

The voice was coming from Poppy, who was murmuring in her sleep. She had spent the whole night dreaming about her experiences with Branch that she cried softly on the verge of missing her beloved boyfriend.

Branch dropped the ball of yarn and got back on his paws, walking up to Poppy’s bed. He can sense how sad she is, and how miserable she has been without his presence.

Branch sighed as he jumped up to her bed. He walked closer to her, nudging her face and purring. He can hardly remember the day he tried to get her attention and almost hurt her hand with his claws, and he swore that he would never do this mistake ever again. He watched Poppy sleep peacefully, her eyes betrayed the immense love he felt for her.

Branch then noticed something under her flower-patterned blanket. Curious, he approached the object and dragged it out, deciding to take a closer look at it.

When Branch finally pulled it out of the blanket, he realized that Poppy has been holding her picture frame of her time with him on the hill during her sleep. He began to examine the frame, leaning in closely at every detail of it when he came across himself in his Troll form.

Branch was surprised. Poppy must have missed him so much that she slept with this photo frame to keep her company, and he was also sure that he really missed being a Troll and spending time with her too. Heartbroken, he looked down at the photo of himself as a Troll and placed his paw at it, stroking it gently.

Branch shed a tear, letting it drop onto the picture. He missed his Troll form more than ever. Not only that, he also missed how Poppy called his name and spent her time with him.

Branch sighed as he gazed longingly at the photo, feeling so miserable. Memories of his happy times with Poppy played through his mind as he thought about them. He wanted to be more than just her pet, and he knew he would be becoming more kittenish as soon as tomorrow approaches. Pushing the photo frame aside, Branch turned his eyes back to Poppy, approaching towards her side.

He bent down on his paws and squeezed himself under her blanket, covering himself with it until his whole body was completely underneath it.

Branch looked around from under the flower-patterned sheet and turned to where Poppy’s face is laying down on the pillows. He peeked out from it and gently started to give her some nuzzles on the cheek. He purred. “PUUUUUUUURRRRRRR......PUUUUUUUURRRRRR...PUUUURRRR.....”

“Hmmm...but Branch, I know we had to get going to Mr. Dinkles’ birthday party today...” Poppy murmured in her sleep as Branch’s nose practically touched her cheek.

Branch had another idea. He brought his face closer to Poppy and started licking her cheek, causing the pink Troll to push him back with a laugh.

“Hehe! B-Branch, stop it!” she giggled, her eyes still closed. “What’s going on?”

This method is working because Poppy finally woke up, opened her eyes and blushed to see the big sad blue eyes of her cat watching her. She had quickly laughed about her weird dream and asked “Mr. Tickle, why are you still awake? What’s wrong?”

She patted Branch’s hair with concern. He responded with gentle meowing, as if he is trying to apologize to her for what he did at the bunker entrance earlier. “Meeeeeeooooowwww!! Meeeeeeooooww!! Meow! Meow! Meeeeeooooowww!!!”

He looked up at Poppy’s eyes to see if she answered back to him. She got up and caressed his soft blue fur, listening to what he wanted to say to her. “Are you apologizing? You are sorry for hurting my feelings?” she asked, immediately guessing the tone of Branch’s meowing. “Is that what you want to tell me?”

“Meow! Meow!” Branch said firmly, nodding and smiling.

Poppy quickly embraced him with a big warm hug, tears of joy running down her face. She was thankfully relieved that she had a very cute and supportive pet cat to accompany her every day.

“Oh, Mr. Tickle! I’m so sorry!” she said, hugging her beloved pet tightly. “I should have never shouted at you for one time! I promise that you need to behave like a proper cat from now on! I love you so much, my sweet baby!”

“Meow! Meow, meow!” Branch said happily as he stroked his paws on Poppy’s face and licked her cheek again. She laughed as she settled him down to the comfort of her bed.

Then, Poppy pulled up her blanket, tucking herself and Branch in tight. She pulled her cat close and stroked his fur and hair. “Goodnight, my best furry friend,” she said. “Tomorrow’s gonna be another great day!”

She closed her eyes and began to sleep. Branch laid down next to her, smiling and falling asleep as well.

As they slept, Poppy put an arm around Branch’s hair and gently fondled it until her hand reached down to his fur, which she also caressed it lovingly.

Branch purred in his sleep as she continued petting every part of his body, feeling so relaxed and comfortable. “PURRRRRRRR…..PURRRRRRR…..”

Tomorrow will surely be another great day for the two of them...

                                               To Be Continued...

                                            Stay tuned for Part 24!

[whispersafterdusk]

Lost in Time - ch 15

"So what part of Lucien are you from?"

Harrison quickly adjusted the pillow behind him (padded and pillow'd booths were still something he was trying to adjust to - how did Django keep these clean and free of stains?) and then settled his hands back around the fragrant mug of tea in front of him.  "We used to live on the border near Duvos but were forced to move."

The girl - Lily - frowned.  "Oh.  Yeah, I...I hear that a lot."

"When you live so close to warmongers it's going to be a common story."

"Did your family stay in Lucien?"

Harrison nodded and took a sip of the tea before answering.  "We did.  We went from a farm to a small home on the opposite side of Lucien -- not enough room for a farm but big enough for my mother's pottery business to continue."

Lily's eyes lit up.  "Pottery?  Did she happen to be the one who made the little teapots with the lids shaped like wild flowers?"

"...yeah, actually," Harrison answered after a pause.  "You've seen them?" ((Continued below cut))

"Ha!  Seen them?  I owned four!" she giggled.  "I loved those things.  I love floral things in general...what with having the name Lily and all. My mother's name is Rose - you could say a love for all things flowery runs in the family."

He laughed with her at that, and again sipped from his tea; it was a black tea blend with a really intense flavor that he'd had to temper with more sugar than he was used to (it was still very delicious though).  "-I just wish the place had a bigger yard.  We owned six dogs when we had to move and there never seemed to be enough space for them to run around once we set up mom's workshop in the back yard."

"Aw..." Lily sighed.  "I always wanted a dog but my mother wouldn't let me have one."

"Ours were farm dogs - they kept predators away from the chickens and goats. We couldn't keep the chickens or goats but the dogs came with us when we moved."

Lily nodded and rocked back and forth for a moment with a dreamy look, then made a little popping noise with her mouth and turned her attention back to him.  "What was farm life like?  Did you have siblings to help out?  How many animals did you have?"

"Eh...it was a lot of work.  I had just turned seven when we moved so I didn't have to do a lot of it but I had an older brother and sister who both complained about having to get up so early to get chores done before school.  I had just gotten old enough to be trusted to feed the chickens each morning..."  He sighed -- he really missed the farm some days.   All that open space to romp around in, the rooster crowing each morning, the smell of freshly plowed dirt.  "How about you?"

"Mom and I lived in a small cottage on the western side of Lucien.  Close to the border with Duvos but not so close that we ever had any trouble.  OUR troubles always came from the Peripheries -- lots of random beasts would wander out of there every spring.  Mom would go drive them off or have to kill them and then we'd sell the meat and hides.  She also had this big flower and herb garden too and she'd sell dried and pressed flowers for scrap-booking and the herbs would go to local chefs."

"Were beasts actually that big of a problem?  I'd sometimes hear my schoolmates talking about big monsters but it always sounded...like just stories, you know?"

Lily lightly slapped her hands flat on the table, leaning toward him with her eyes wide.  "Stories?  Ha, no - you should see some of the things that wander out of that area.  Nothing that mom couldn't ever handle by herself but sometimes they made a really big mess."

Harrison nodded slowly at that, and for a moment his attention was caught by the steam curling up out of his mug; in a flash of imagination he pictured the steam curling out of the nostrils of some big beasty, and shuddered a bit.  "That must have been rough."

"I guess it was."

Lily paused as Sonia brought out the fruit salads they had ordered; someone with a broken ankle had come in to the clinic during Harrison's lunch break and he'd gotten back to eating much later than intended so he wasn't all that hungry but had ordered something anyway because it had seemed like Lily was going to forgo eating since he was.

"-do your parents and siblings still live at your new place? -- well, I guess it's not new now if they have been," Lily giggled.  She stuck a grape into her mouth and Harrison could hear it pop from across the table as she bit down.

"They do.  We've sort of dug in, you could say," he chuckled.  "Set down new roots and now they're in deep." He picked out a grape for himself and almost drooled when he chomped down; these were really, really juicy -- perfectly ripe.  Portia really had some of the best produce around. "-how about your family?"

"Mom's still holding down the fort," Lily mumbled around her mouthful of grape pulp. "I don't think anything could convince her to move...it's kind of annoying, really."

"Why's that?"

"Well..." Lily sighed heavily, swallowed, and then absently twirled her fork around with her fingers.  "...I don't know.  When I was younger she always seemed so bright and cheerful, and loved doing odd jobs that took her out and about to new places.  At some point though she came back totally changed and swapped over to pressing flowers and growing herbs.  Life...got a lot more difficult when she did that, both monetarily and just in general.  It's like a totally different person came home."

"Oh."

Lily shrugged and began picking the rest of the grapes out of the salad; Harrison tried to keep a neutral expression but inwardly he was sort of dying for having managed to make this awkward.

"It's not a big deal," Lily finally went on (after what felt like forever).  "Mom doesn't have the heart to travel anymore so I do instead.  Take back all sorts of trinkets and stories.  She seems to love that part so I keep doing it. It's pretty easy to find odd jobs everywhere so I can see how she managed to do it all the time."

"Yeah, neat," Harrison replied in a rush.  "I mean, uh - that's neat," he added after a moment, hoping he managed to get a more normal tone out this time.

She simply grinned at him and bit a bite of watermelon in half.  Some juice trickled down her chin; she didn't seem to notice.  They ate in silence for a bit; Harrison still felt ready to melt into his seat and disappear but Lily seemed at ease, and the fruit really was good.

Thankfully they managed some more small talk once they'd emptied their bowls -- when and why Harrison decided to become a doctor, more about his mom's pottery business (she asked him to ask his mother if she could hold a lily-patterned tea pot for her, and he promised to write to her about it), Lily's vast knowledge of flowers and their care, some of her traveling stories.  That earlier feeling of awkwardness had faded and was replaced with a light, giddy feeling of having met someone new (and someone who...apparently thought he was cute, which was its own sort of sensation that made his heart race a bit).

It was almost closing time by the time they'd paid and walked outside; there was a chilly breeze whistling down the street and Harrison zipped his coat up to the very top.

"How long will you be in Portia?"

Lily shrugged and tightened her scarf.  "I didn't plan on staying long but I think I'll stick around for awhile."  She flashed him a mischievous grin with that.  "Pretty good reason to."

Again he felt his ears burning.  "A-ah."

"Do you work every day at the clinic?"

"Not EVERY day, no, but most."

She nodded and bounced on the balls of her feel again.  "All right.  I'll come poking around again...maybe tomorrow?"

"I...think I'd like that, yeah." They smiled at one another and the burning in his ears spread across his face. "Where are you staying?"

She pointed across the way to Happy Apartments.  "There, for now.  I WAS camping out near the beach but I'm tired of how cold it's been.  And with my arm having a hole in it I wanted ready access to hot water so I could keep it clean."

She waggled her arm at him and he nodded - clean water, hot or not, was definitely better than unfiltered sea water to keep the wound free of infection.

"-oh, speaking of my arm, I had a...weird question."

"Hmm?"

She pursed her lips and hesitated, then huffed.  "So up in Atara I overheard folks talking about some kind of machine you had down here - something that surgically fixed things?"

Some kind of-- oh.  "You mean the Uplifter?"

"Not sure what it's called but maybe? Someone there was bragging about how it had fixed their split lip without even leaving a scar behind.  Does it...only work on faces?" Harrison nodded and her shoulders slumped.   "Well, poo.  So much for that idea."

"What...idea?  Were you wanting to try and use it on your arm?"

She nodded.  "Yeah.  I'm cleaning it like the doctor told me to and everything but I was hoping it could be...you know, fixed, without me having to deal with it for the next several weeks."

"Ah.  Y-yeah, unfortunately it's only designed to work on the neck and up."

"What's it do, then?"

"Uh..." Harrison shoved his hands into his pockets, thinking -- Xu hadn't formally taught him about the Uplifter just yet but he sort of knew a few things.  "It...repairs injuries, and I know it can alter things about your face.  It can also temporarily cause your hair to grow in a different color too."

Lily's eyes lit up at that.  "Different hair color?!  Really?"  She blew out a breath and looked up toward the sky, smiling.  "I've always wanted green or blue hair... But it only does it temporarily?"

"Yeah.  No idea how long it lasts - I haven't been taught much about it."

All of a sudden her expression froze and she looked to him wide-eyed.  "Hang on - you said it can ALTER your face?"

"Yeah.  Dr. Xu said he's used it to fix cleft lips and a few other facial birth defects on people from Atara and Ethea."

"How?"

"I have no idea," he sighed.  "It's a complex piece of machinery.  I guess if I read the manual I could figure out the science behind it but I doubt I'll be learning about it any time soon...or ever.  I won't have one when I become a doctor and strike out on my own so it might not be worth my time to learn about something I won't have access to later."

Lily's expression relaxed, as did the rest of her, and she rocked back and forth from toes to heels.  "That's a good point.  Kind of wild that something like that exists and used to exist in the Old World too... I bet Old World people had crazy hair colors," she giggled.

He opened his mouth to respond and then immediately closed it; right on the tip of his tongue was Eli's name and situation -- if anyone would be able to talk about hair color trends of the Old World she'd be the one. But...it seemed like it wasn't his place to tell anyone about her.   There was rumor enough floating around without him pointing more people toward her, and he'd seen her therapy sessions; it just...wouldn't be right to put more pressure on her right now.  She was a person, not a novelty.

"Either that or they were really terrible about not injuring their faces," he said finally.

Lily let out a laugh that ended in a snort; she clapped her hands to her mouth and blushed a bit (or maybe it was just the way the lights outside the Round Table lit her face - it was hard to tell).  "Ha- uh, eheh.   Sorry.  That just immediately made me think of an entire civilization of people with too-short doors banging their heads everywhere they went."

Harrison bit his lower lip to cut back on his laugh - that WAS a funny image.   "Maybe the doors were all normal-sized and Old World people were just really tall."

"Or bad at building doors!"

She started laughing again and Harrison let himself laugh along; even if he knew that was just goofy speculation it was still pretty amusing to picture.

Once she'd caught her breath she turned toward the Apartments in the distance.  "Ok.  So I'll see you at some point tomorrow?"

"Sure thing."

"All right!  Good night!"  She waved over her shoulder and headed off toward the apartment building.

Harrison waited and watched until she made it through the doors and inside, then let his feet carry him to Dr. Xu's house.  He had a few books to pick up before he returned to his own rented room at the Happy Apartments building.

Oh.  Maybe he should have mentioned he was staying there too.

Man...he was really bad at this.

-----------------------------------------------

Two more weeks and no sign of the spy.

At least by then Mali had come back and she'd helped Arlo, Remington, and Sam comb the entire Portian countryside again as well as most of the territory between here and Sandrock.

They'd found a few old campsites but the tracks were too muddled to tell who they belonged to; with Old Bob wandering around and tourists moving through Portia it just wasn't possible to positively confirm who had stayed where -- Eli, Asher, and Mali had worked out a rough "when" for the sites but it wasn't any help at determining the "who" part of it.  And that rope bridge that went underneath the waterfall was gone now too.

They were essentially at a dead end and it had Arlo frustrated; he hated the idea of danger lurking around Portia.  Maybe that spy was sent here to do exactly that - spy.  But what if they were sent to harm or steal something? They'd already taken one gun off the first spy...who knew what this semi-invisible person possibly had on them now that their presence was known?

They'd all spent a lot of time discussing tactics; for now they were going to ask Selene to design a sprinkler system to keep the area nice and muddy and also borrow some of the builder's fine wire and hide trip wires in the tallest grass attached to...well, they hadn't decided on that part yet but it was going to be something that could be easily hidden and also made a ton of noise if something shook it.  Since none of them could come up with anything that could overcome the suit's near-invisibility they would have to focus on what physical variables they could actually affect.

One decision they'd made that Arlo didn't agree with was what Eli called a "Stupid Plan" - capital S, capital P.  The logic, she explained, was that the spy knew that THEY knew the spy was around; they should assume that the spy would be carefully watching them for signs of vigilance and be purposely avoiding their search efforts.  The trick to getting the spy to lower their guard again was for the rest of them to pretend to be stupid: everyone goes "back to normal" and pretends to stop looking for them (with emphasis on pretend - they'd all of course still be as vigilant as they could without tipping their hand).

"If we can just convince this person that we're convinced they're gone," Eli had said, "then I bet they'll get bold and sloppy, just like how they got bold the night we first fought them."

It made a sort of sense in a way but Arlo didn't like the idea; he wasn't comfortable with pretending to let his guard down (mostly because he didn't know how to actually do that).  The Pigs, Sam, and Remington had been willing to give it a shot so he'd been outnumbered, though they'd at least all respected his concerns about it.

The one good thing out of the decision to enact the Stupid Plan was he and Eli were free to go back to their respective abodes and sleep in their own beds.  He didn't realize how much he'd missed his bed until he was back in it - no hard pillow beneath his head, no rough canvas surface of the cot under him, no carpet burns on his elbows from said canvas.  It felt like a shameful luxury to be back in a proper bed and he actually overslept the next morning.  By the time he'd dressed and hurried down to Selene's to meet the others for their newly restarted morning training sessions they were already halfway through the warm up exercises. It did make him feel a bit better to see Eli looked a little...not tired, but not exactly focused.  More like she could fall back asleep if she laid down somewhere.  

Adam was here today in Asher's place; he moved to a spot next to the man and started in with the rest of them as they swapped between exercises and stretches to warm them up for their run and the harder stuff afterward.

"Anything?" he grunted after a bit, glancing toward Adam.

"Nothing," came the answer.

Well...he supposed he wasn't surprised.  

It was nice to be back to training at least; Eli seemed to be going easy (easier) on them today.  They finished their warm ups, did their run, and came back to do the harder things but it felt shorter than he remembered it being.  Still...the combination of sore muscles, sweat, and a heightened heart rate felt good.  When they were done and had cooled off some Remington and Sam headed out to take up their old patrol routes; Adam left to, presumably, head back to the facility camp, leaving him and Eli alone in the yard.

As he watched she did some stretches (ones that were different than those she'd taught them) and then moved over to lean against the fence and stare out into the fields; he glanced out that way too -- there were barren trees, bushes, and a few llamas out there that were picking at the first green shoots coming up.  With the spring melt finally upon them the bushes and trees would be budding soon and there'd be more out there aside from the isolated spots of hardy herbs that, somehow, managed to survive and grow even in freezing temperatures.

"I have to be honest," he said into the silence.  Eli shifted just enough that he knew she was listening but not so much that she was looking at him.  "I have no idea how to act like I'm not aware of my surroundings.  That's probably going to be the hardest part about all of this for me."

"Want to learn?"

He came up to stand beside her at the fence and eyed a couple of llamas as they suddenly burst into a hopping fit, bouncing around one another for a few moments before going back to grazing.  "How exactly do you teach something like that?"

"It's not hard - you just have to learn new ways to pay attention without paying attention."

She looked over to him with a smug smirk; he blew out a sigh but smiled.   "I'm guessing it's something I have to be shown that can't really be explained."

"More or less, yeah."

"I guess the next question is when would you want to start?"

She shrugged.  "Can be anytime we're both free.  It's not something that's easy to teach so you're going to need a lot of time to dedicate to it."

Arlo nodded; his schedule was back to normal now that they were acting out the Stupid Plan.  "We can make it work."

Out in the fields there was suddenly the noise of startled llamas; Arlo shifted his attention from Eli back out to the animals and could see a pair of figures walking in the fields.  He squinted that way and it took him a moment to realize it was Dr. Xu and...someone else.  Probably that student of his.  Xu had what he thought was a basket over one arm and seemed to be gesturing at the little dots of bright green among the brown, soggy grasses.  His student nodded and walked over to bend down over one of the green spots and began to carefully remove bits and pieces and hand them up to Xu -- Arlo knew the doctor went on walks to collect whatever freshly growing plants he could find, even in the dead of winter, so it seemed they were observing one of those.  

Movement from the south caught his eye then and he saw someone approaching the two in the fields; whoever it was was bundled up in a heavy coat and had a scarf on -- it looked to be a woman, but not anyone Arlo recognized. She waved at the two in the field and the student waved back (what had been his name?  It started with an H...Arlo had only met him once and now he couldn't remember the man's name).  Whoever the woman was didn't stick around long: she greeted them, very briefly talked to them, then continued on back toward Portia.

"Any idea who that is?"

Eli shook her head.  "Nope.  I've seen her walking around town but I've not talked to her myself.  Guess I can ask Dr. Xu at my next therapy session."

Arlo nodded, then looked over to her.  "...I don't want to make you uncomfortable with personal questions, but..."

A faint smile crossed her face; this time she did turn her head to look at him.  "How's it going?  It's...going.  Some days are better than others but overall it's getting easier.  Time heals all wounds as they say."

"I'm glad to hear it."  He turned to put his back against the fence and leaned.  "There's a holiday coming up - Day of the Bright Sun.  I bet a lot of people would like to see you there."

"What's the holiday for?"

"Have you heard of or read about Peach yet?"

She nodded.  "That's the guy who invented some machine that got rid of the clouds in the sky, right?"

"Right.  It's a holiday to celebrate the sun returning.  We spend the week leading up to it wrapping gifts and delivering them to city hall, and on the day of the holiday the gifts are dropped all over town from an airship that flies over Portia."

Eli raised an eyebrow at that.   "Not sure which is harder to believe - air-dropped presents or the fact an airship still exists."

"It-" Arlo paused, thinking on how to word it.  "-it's probably not the type of airship you might be thinking of."

"I'd hope not.  Airships were bigger than Portia is."

"Really?" he asked; she nodded, and he shook his head.  "Hard to picture...  But ah, no.  This airship isn't all that big.  Not much bigger than Mali's plane, to be honest."

"Is this a sort of buy in thing to participate then?"

"Buy in?"

"Do I have to give gifts to be able to receive any?"

"Not..." Again he paused.  "Not really?  I don't think there's any actual rule about it.  Why?"

"I'm not the greatest at choosing gifts - especially not for people I hardly know.  And I don't want to receive something if I didn't give someone a gift."

"Oh, don't worry about that.  Everyone gives something - usually several things - even if it's just small trinkets or even raw materials of some kind, and the gifts don't have anyone's names except for the giver on them.  Just last year a pair of gifts I received were a bouquet of flowers and a roll of cotton fabric -- it's sort of a crap shoot for what you might get."

Eli nodded slowly, wrinkling her nose. "Well, if I'm not buying for specific people that makes it a lot easier in that regard.  A lot less awkward too, since I'm not physically giving them out myself."

"Nope.  Just catch presents falling from the sky."

"Sounds...interesting, then.  I'd at least show up for the novelty."

He smiled at her.  "And companionship, I'd hope."

She returned the smile.  "Yeah, yeah, that too."  With a small grunt she straightened and dusted her hands off.  "I'll add gift shopping onto my To Do list.  Let me know when you next have some free time and we can start in on teaching you a few new tricks."

"I'm free now if you are."

He watched as she turned to head toward the opposite side of the yard where the gate to the road was; after a breath or two he followed her -- what else was he supposed to do?

"Now's good, I guess.  Without turning around, how many llamas were out on the field?"

"Uh."  Arlo slowed to a stop; the urge to turn around or at least peek was strong but she'd specifically told him NOT to do that.  "...five?"

"Seven.  How many bushes were out there?"

"Si...six?"

"Four."

He blew out a sigh and started to follow along behind her again.  "I'm guessing my first lesson is to assess everything I see?"

"The idea is to sort of...absorb it without actively counting or noting things.  Things like numbers, patterns, colors, people, details of places, sounds and what directions things are coming from or moving in. Take it all in, in a glance or two, and be able to recall it quickly."

"Right..."  Ahead of him Eli headed out of the gate and then waited, holding it open for him.  "Well.  I'm up for the challenge."

She just smiled and led the way down the road.

----------------------------------------------

Something about the sound of the airship overhead was distinctly...uncomfortable.

Not enough that it wasn't something she could tolerate but enough that she could feel anxiety and a bit of fear just beneath the surface; with it came an urge to duck into cover, or to otherwise get out of sight. Eli couldn't recall ever hearing something like it but clearly her subconscious did, and inside her head a small alarm system was starting to blare.

She'd been standing with the crowd of townsfolk only moments ago but the arrival of the airship had sent them all into a stumbling jog together as a group, laughing and lightly jostling one another; no one stopped unless they'd actually managed to snag a present and then those persons hung back to let the group run ahead and get a head start on the rest of the falling presents.

Eli wasn't anywhere near enough to catch any, and at the moment she didn't particularly care.

 I'm FINE.  I'm fine.  There's no danger here.

She kept it going as a little mantra in her head and forced herself to focus on the spectacle of an entire town catching things raining out of the sky.  Sam had said the airship swept across the city and then out to the fields; it should be out of sight and range soon.

Sucking in a breath she scanned her surroundings; a ginger-haired woman with a parasol and Gust were still here, as was Gale.  They were walking at a slow pace, talking and laughing amongst themselves, and hadn't seemed to notice she'd lingered.

She should...probably move.  To avoid drawing attention to herself.  This wasn't something she wanted to try and explain to anyone - especially not on a holiday.  Let them have their festivities and fun...no reason to bring the mood down.

Of course that meant following the source of the sound.

 Come on.  I can handle this.  It won't be much longer.

It took another breath or two to urge herself into a slow walk, heading off after the crowd.  Here and there in the street were bows and ribbons - she assumed they'd fallen off the gifts since she was still trying to wrap her head around how the presents could survive falling from such a height.  Did shock foam persist through the ages?  Maybe she could get a look at a box later.

The crowd was at the far side of the plaza ahead - the one with the big tree in the middle.  Eli glanced up and traced the path of a package that was wrapped in bright orange paper with white ribbon; it suddenly hit her that those looked an awful lot like New Year's Dawn presents.  A holiday that didn't exist anymore...one she'd never experience again.  No presents, no family dinners, no games, no costume parties...

Simultaneously she felt a heavy weight settle in her gut coupled with the sensation of her stomach twisting into a knot, followed by a familiar hot prickle behind her eyes.  Abruptly she stopped and spun on her heel, fully intending to retreat as quickly as possible back to her room.  In a split instant she realized Asher had been walking up behind her - it was clear he'd been trying to catch up to her and her sudden reversal of direction had caught him by surprise while also nearly bowling him over.

"Whoa-" Asher stumbled a bit as he tried to put some space between them.

"Sorry.  What's up?" she asked quickly.  She side-stepped him and looked up the street -- no one was in sight now.  Good.  She could still make an escape.

"Uh." His eyes were on her as she moved.  "-is something wrong?"

In the moment Eli knew she could just lie and say everything was fine; the problem was if he could already see it on her face then it'd be pointless to try and hide it now.  With a deep breath she rubbed at the bridge of her nose.  "Yes.  Sort of. I just need to get some distance between me and here."

With that she started walking; it was a little difficult to hear him over the sound of the airship but after a pause Asher's footsteps hurried after her.

"At the risk of sounding insensitive, what's the exact problem?"

"Dunno," she replied.  "Just something about that sound is...not good."

He sped up until he matched her speed and then walked at her side.   "Gotcha.  Um.  Let's -- have you seen the hot spring retreat?  We can catch the Dee-Dee up there and it ought to be far enough away you won't hear the airship."

"I hope you're not expecting me to actually utilize the springs."

"No, I wasn't thinking that.  That's just the first location that's within quick and easy reach that I could think of that would also be fairly quiet."

"I could just go home."

"Do you want to be shut in a room at the moment?"

Eli sighed and squeezed her eyes shut; what she wanted, right now, was to be normal and at the festival, holiday, whatever-it-was in the plaza.   Which...after that airship left, maybe she could go back. Maybe. Her obvious lack of caught gifts might invite questions she'd rather discuss with Dr. Xu first though, so maybe not.

Luckily as they came within sight of the Dee-Dee stop the Dee-Dee was only ten yards down the road; Asher waved at it and the driver stopped and waited for them to jog down to the stop instead of continuing on.  The hum of the Dee-Dee motor seemed a little more familiar, if a bit rougher than she was accustomed to, and it helped a bit to drown out the airship's rumble.   It was a short drive up to the retreat and, as Asher had said, it was way quieter -- she could barely detect the airship from here, and once they were standing on the dock that surrounded the little inset pool meant for the hot spring patrons to sit in there was the lapping of water and a bubbling noise as well.

Now that the "danger," according to her brain, was gone she could feel a bit of tension draining away and leaving what felt like a gaping, empty ache behind her right eye.  Asher found and unfolded a pair of fabric deck chairs and set them up facing the west, away from Portia and any chance of spotting the airship.  Eli dropped into one and ground the heels of her palms into her eyes.

"So."  She had to clear her throat and try again.  "-so, was there something you needed?"

Asher lowered himself into the other chair but didn't lean back.  "Not in particular.  Mali wanted to talk to Arlo and I was asked to play messenger but since he's busy with the holiday she wasn't expecting him to go rushing out."

"Don't let me keep you from an errand.  I'll be fine."

He waved a hand dismissively.  "They can wait.  Unless you're wanting me to leave."  With that he looked over to her.

She blew out a long sigh.  "I don't know what I want.  Well, I do.  But none of what I want is possible.  I want to go home.  I want to hug my husband and parents again.  I want to see my squad.  Some days I wake up and I'm perfectly fine with the thought that all that's gone and there's nothing I can do about it...other days, you just have to press on and act like you're fine."

Asher bowed his head slightly, resting his chin on his fists with his elbows braced against the hard wood of the arms of the deck chair.  "I wish there was something I could do, or say, to help with it all.  Sometimes being human seems like a waste, doesn't it?  Brains we don't have control over stirring us up and making someone think or feel things they probably wouldn't choose to otherwise."

Eli managed a very faint smile.  "I definitely can think of better emotions to be stuck with, yes."  She let out another heavy sigh and rubbed at her temples - the ache was spreading across the front of her head, through the forehead area and behind both eyes now. "I think I have a slight edge in that part of ranger training was focusing on instinct and logic and forgoing most emotional reactions.   We were...always ready for it to go to hell.  You had to be ready to switch off the emotional part of your brain and get shit done at any moment.  I think my 300 year long nap damaged that switch, or maybe this is just too much to switch off whenever I want to."

Asher nodded at her but didn't say anything; they both went quiet and Eli focused her attention on the details and soft noises around her: the wind, the bubbling of the spring, the small waves caused by the bubbles hitting the pilings that supported the dock.  A few times she heard faint birdsong.  There was a small building on the dock that she assumed held whatever was needed for the hot springs business; it was partially blocking the wind coming off the fields so the steam off the springs was actually making it a bit too warm for her liking.  She thought of taking her jacket off but didn't want her shirt to get damp.

Without any other option Eli just sat and steamed inside her coat until every last hint of sound of the airship was gone; after giving it a few minutes more she stood up and turned to look toward Portia -- at least from here it seemed like the airship was actually gone.  

There was the creaking of a deck chair to her right and out of the corner of an eye Eli could just make out Asher standing up.

"Are you ready to head back?"

"I think so.  It seems pretty quiet."

He studied her a moment.  "Are you wanting to go back to the celebration, or just head home?"

"We'll see how I feel when I'm at the gate again."

They put the deck chairs away and headed back toward the Dee-Dee stop to wait for the next one to drive by.

"...as embarrassing and awkward as this was...  Thanks."

Asher flashed her a gap-toothed grin.  "You're welcome.  Have to earn my keep somehow."

She snorted and shook her head.  "Typically 'friend' is not a salaried position."

"Good job security, at least."

------------------------------------------------

Everyone around him was buzzing with excitement and chattering over the gifts they'd gotten this year; Arlo had gotten a neat looking woven wristband in purples and greens (no name on it so no idea who had given it) along with a new bronze blade from Django, and (purely by accident, since his third gift had technically been caught up in the tree without anyone noticing until it fell out and hit him as he was walking by) a nice woolen blanket from Sophie.

The box that the blanket had come in was a tad too bulky to comfortably carry around so he had it sitting on the bench beside him as he stood off to the side of the Research Center; everyone was beginning to break off in small groups to go take photos together, and he knew that once Sam and Remington had done whatever personal ones they wanted to take that they'd be looking for him so they could all take their yearly Civil Corps picture together.

Skimming the crowd Arlo couldn't help but feel a bit sad that he didn't see Eli anywhere; he had the urge to go walking around to see if he'd just overlooked her somehow but knew it'd be easier for Remington and Sam to find him if he stayed put.

He knew that logically it was going to take time for Eli to feel fully welcome, and like she fully fit in...still, he couldn't help but feel like he was at fault in some way. Should he have personally invited her along, instead of leaving it open?  But then would it seem like he was being overbearing or guilting her into something she didn't want to do?  There were times he held back out of worry that he was about to be too pushy but perhaps that instead was making him look too distant?

"Arloooooo-"

At the shout he looked up sharply only to see a mob of children heading his way - the triplets, Jack, and Toby at their head.  

"No need to yell.  What do you need?"

Toby walked up and let the boxes he was carrying drop to the ground in a heap.  "Have you seen Eli?  We can't find her anywhere."

Hm.  So that confirmed that she just wasn't here rather than he'd somehow missed her.  "I haven't, sorry."

Toby huffed out a sigh.  "Guess we'll keep looking.  Mayor Gale let us grab some extra presents for her since no one had seen her and we wanna give them to her."

Arlo looked the kids over; the boxes at Toby's feet had been opened, as were the three boxes Jack was toting.  Each of the triplets had two opened boxes each but they also all carried one extra, unopened gift.  "That's very nice of you kids to do that."

"Guess we can check if she's at home," Jack said.  Toby nodded and scooped up his opened gifts.

"Try not to bombard her," Arlo called after them as they started to head off up the street.

"What was that all about?"

Arlo turned to see Sam standing there.  "They're looking for Eli.  Don't suppose you've seen her today?"

"Not since the very start," Sam answered.  "She was with everyone when the airship started its pass.  You don't think something happened to call her away, do you?"

He frowned; that hadn't crossed his mind, actually.  "...I hope not.  We should go check - have you seen Remington?"

"Selene cornered him for a few pictures but he should be free here in a few."

With a nod Arlo turned around and looked over the blanket box; there was a recycle bin at the bench near the base of the tree.  He first took the bronze sword out of its box and fastened its clip to one of the straps on his jacket, then slipped the sword into place until he heard it click securely.  Next he took the blanket out of the box and tossed it over his shoulder; it didn't take long to walk over to the recycle bin and deposit the boxes, and by then Remington had spotted them and they all met up at the barbershop.

"Do we have trouble?" Remington asked once he'd reached them.

"Possibly," Sam replied.  "Seems Eli disappeared right as the airship started its flight over town - we're worried something might have called her away so we're headed out to the facility to go looking for her."

Arlo nodded (even though they hadn't discussed the 'facility' part - it made sense to head in that direction so he wasn't going to try and correct her).  "If you're done here let's head out."

Remington gave a curt nod and the three of them turned to head up the street; once they'd crested the hill and arrived in Peach Plaza they, to their surprise, spied Eli -- she was standing with Asher and the five kids were huddled around them near Peach's statue.

"-well that's good news," Sam said after a pause.  "If she AND Asher are both here then there's probably nothing wrong."

"At the facility," Arlo added.  He looked between the two of them.  "There might be something else wrong, if you catch my meaning."

Remington frowned.  "Hmm.  Yeah...could be.  I bet this reminds her of a holiday back in her own time.  Bad memories."

Sam matched his frown.  "Didn't think about that.  ...well, let's go see."

Arlo walked with them up toward the group around Eli; Asher caught his eye and flashed them an 'OK' signal discretely, which Arlo acknowledged with quick jerk of his head.

"-AND," Toby was saying, as they got within earshot.  "Look!  I kept my grades up just like I said I would!"

The three unopened gifts were sitting in a small stack at Eli's feet; Arlo watched as Eli turned her attention to a square of paper Toby was waving around.  Finally she managed to grab it out of his hands and hold it still so she could read it and after a moment she nodded and handed it back.

"All right, fair enough - you did like you promised your mother you'd do.  So now, once your mother says it's ok to start, I'll start teaching you.  But only when your mother says so," Eli said, emphasizing the last part.

"Man, this is going to be great!" Toby squealed.  He stuffed the report card back into his jacket pocket and spun around, taking off in a sprint only to collide with Remington.   "-oof, sorry!"

Remington helped get him steady on his feet and then wisely stood aside as the boy took off running again.  "It's fine just-" and then, rather than finishing his sentence, just shrugged with an amused look as Toby was already mostly out of sight.

The other kids giggled and said their goodbyes and headed off to follow Toby (though at a much slower speed), leaving the five adults to look to one another.

"We were worried when we didn't see you," Remington finally said.  

Eli smiled faintly; Arlo thought she looked tired.

"I'm fine.  Just had to step away to get some air," she replied.  Her attention flicked down to the gifts at her feet, and then Arlo was almost certain she looked at the wristband he was wearing; the smile got a little deeper and he had an inkling as to who had given the gift without putting their name on it.  "Was nice of them to think of me like that."

"They wanted to make sure you got something," Arlo said.  "You were missed today."

Something flickered across her face but the smile came right back.  "Ha, c'mon - you're going to make me blush."

As she talked there was something written on Asher's face but Arlo couldn't read it well - it was something like thinly disguised concern, he thought.  It seemed to him like Eli hadn't just stepped away for air...but what had happened?

Asher noticed Arlo studying him and the odd look went away, replaced with a smile of his own.  "Well! Now that that's taken care of, what say we all head down to what's left of the festivities?"

"It's just pictures left, and then the town photo," Sam said.  "If we hurry we might be able to get one or two in before the big one."

Eli's brow furrowed.  "Another town photo?  Is that just...something that's done at every holiday?"

"Mostly," Remington chuckled.  "We do like our photographs here in Portia."

After a pause Eli nodded at that.  "I guess some things don't change -- ah, er.  I mean, people's desire to document things don't.  There's no conceiveable way that ANY city in my time could have ever gathered together for one big group photo where you could still even tell it WAS people."

She bent to pick up the gifts; Arlo stepped over to her and offered a hand.  "Want to open those before you head down?"

"Oh.  Guess I should, yeah."  

Arlo took two of the gifts off her hands and stood there while she balanced the third one on top of them.  The first box opened revealed a finely carved crystal inside a delicate wire filigree that was strung on a leather tie -- something Arlo immediately recognized because HE'D been the one that had bought that one from a traveling craftsman months ago and given over to city hall as one of his gifts.

When she flipped the tag over to read it Arlo saw her expression soften a bit, and the smile grew.  "Ha - interesting twist of fate, that."

"Y-yeah, I guess," he laughed quietly.  "Is the wristband something you...?"

"Saw me looking at it, huh?" she said as she tied the crystal necklace on.   "I couldn't figure out what to buy so I made a couple things.  Funny we got one another's gifts."

"Better than getting one of your own?" Sam offered.  She looked amused but also admiring of the necklace.   "Where'd you even get that?"

"I'll tell you later," Arlo answered.  He swapped one of Eli's unopened gifts with the empty box and stood there holding her last one while she opened the considerably larger box.

Inside was a pot (plastic, but painted with a gorgeous geometric pattern) with a healthy looking asteria plant in it with a tag from Alice attached to it; Arlo again swapped out her last gift with the empty box and then, as she was opening it, began to carefully break the boxes down so they could go into the recycle bin.  Inside the last box was a copy of Journey to the East, from Django.

Eli turned the book over in her hands.  "Huh...I remember a book by this name existing back in my day.  I wonder if this is the same story."

"Only one way to find out," Remington said with a grin.  He gently clapped a hand to Eli's shoulder and looked down the street.  "Why don't we all go get one photo squeezed in?"

"Sure."  Eli tucked the took under an armpit and carried the potted asteria in the same arm.

Arlo quickly collapsed the book the book had been in and deposited them in the recycle bin as they passed by; they had their picture taken together just outside of Portia's gates then hurried back inside to get on the riser for the town photo.

"How about dinner?" Asher asked once the picture was taken.  "We can all squeeze into a booth, probably."

"Didn't you have a message for Arlo?" Eli asked dryly.

Asher shrugged.  "I'm getting to it.  Mali stressed that it wasn't any rush."

Arlo looked over at him.  "What?"

"Mali wants to talk to you, when you've got time.  She specifically said it's not anything immediately important because she didn't want to interrupt your holiday.  So, let's go get dinner, then you and I-" he said, pausing to waggle thumb between himself and Arlo, "-can take them some dinner and see what Mali wanted."

"Assuming we can get into the Round Table," Sam said with a smirk and a nod of her head toward the crowd of people walking toward the restaurant.

Asher shrugged again and grabbed the elbows of Remington and Eli.  "Then let's get moving so we don't get shut out."  He began to pull them along with him, and Sam and Arlo followed.

They did manage to get a table, with Remington and Sam on one side and Eli sandwiched between Asher and Arlo on the other.  Arlo found it...a bit suspect, that it always seemed like Asher found a spot next to Eli; it wasn't his business but it stood out to him in a way he thought he should remember.

It looked like Eli's first lesson on noticing things had already sunk in.

[helaintoloki]

Just What I Needed

pairing: Xavier x Latina!reader

warnings/details: language, small amount of angst, fluff, unedited, some of the dialogue is in Spanish :)

notes: don’t really know what this is and I mostly wrote it for myself so I don’t expect much. But seeing the Chicano neighborhoods and stuff in last night’s episode reminded me of my family and the neighborhoods we used to live in so I wrote this. Hits close to home for me. Enjoy

“I don’t mind you comin here, and wastin all my time”

1983

“¡Amá, ya me voy!” She calls out as she rushes out the door, bag carelessly slung over her shoulder as she hurriedly steps into her beat down truck. It had been a birthday present, bought with scrounged and saved up money her parents had collected. It wasn’t much, but she loved it all the same.

The chatter of the neighborhood children and loud shouts of the street seller on the corner are quickly drowned out by the sounds of Fleetwood Mac playing from the stereo. She doesn’t want to go to work today, but the world stops for no one and so she continues her trek to her nine to five job.

The Hot Dog on a Stick uniform is tight and itchy, but y/n keeps her complaints to herself as she takes the orders of various customers and works over the hot dog fryers. It’s humiliating squeezing the lemons for the lemonade but that’s when she gets the most tips, from guys ogling at the way her breasts bounce with each pump of the handle.

By six o’clock she’s burned out and tired, sick of the smell of ketchup and very close to smacking the next bitch who so much as tries to open their mouth and insult her. She doesn’t need anymore of it, and she only puts up with this stupid job to pay for school and help her parents. She didn’t have the same opportunities as the other kids did in school, didn’t have scholarships lined up or free rides to anything or any saved up money. It wasn’t so easy being poor and growing up in the rougher side of town, but she was tough, and she managed.

“Nice uniform,” a voice pipes up, and y/n has to refrain from rolling her eyes at the blonde girl standing in front of the counter.

“What can I get you?” Y/N sighs.

“Oh, I’m not here for food. My friend, the one standing over there with the nice ass, thinks you’re a real hot chick. Can he get your number?”

She peers over at the boy, casually leaned back against one of the tables as he flashes her an award winning smile. And she almost says yes. Almost.

“Not interested,” y/n says. “I’ve gotta make some more lemonade.”

And she walks into the back room to get more lemons.

~~~

“That lemonade you made was really good,” Xavier smirks, taking a long, obnoxious sip from the plastic straw held between his plump lips.

“Thanks,” y/n shrugs, uninterested, and he pouts.

“C’mon, I’m really trying here,” he insists, “I wanna take you out. Let me take you out.”

“Do you even know my name?” She retorts.

“Course I do... y/n,” he says, blatantly reading off of her name tag. “One date, I promise. If you don’t like me I’ll stay far, far away from you and your delicious lemonade.”

He winks, and y/n is really tired. Tired of work, tired of constant studying, tired of putting up with society’s bullshit. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t need a night out away from it all. And Xavier wasn’t too terrible looking.

“Alright. Pick me up tomorrow at six.” She tears a napkin free from the holder and scribbles her number and address. “I don’t like to wait.”

“You’ve got it babe,” Xavier grins, gladly swiping the napkin from her fingertips and waltzing away. And y/n almost regrets her decision. Almost.

~~~

Xavier checks the address written on the napkin five times to assure him that he’s in the right neighborhood. Little kids run around in the street while their fathers sit on their porches with a beer in hand as soft Spanish ballads play from their stereos. He’s in the ghettos, a part of town he’d never stepped foot in, but he tries not to pay any mind to it as he steps out of his van and approaches the front door.

A woman opens the door, little kids running around behind her. Her graying hair is tied up into a neat bun, apron tied securely around her waist as she cradles a baby in her arms.

“I’m Xavier,” he smiles, offering his hand. The woman only stares at it. “Shit, umm...” he tries to think back to the basic vocabulary he had once learned in Spanish class but comes up empty handed, so the only thing he can muster is a weak and shaky, “Hola?”

Y/N appears behind the woman, a small smile on her face as she kisses her mother on the cheek.

“Orita vengo, mamá. Voy a pasar un rato con mi amigo Xavier.” If he had been a puppy, all could have seen the way his ears would perk up at the mention of his name, the only word he understands in the sentence.

“Con cuidado, hija,” her mother warns, and y/n simply shakes her and presses another kiss to her cheek.

“Sí mamá. Te quiero.”

And the door shuts and it’s just the two of them again on the creaky porch.

“She seems nice.”

“She is,” y/n nods, “what’s that?”

“Oh, these. Flowers,” he says, a soft smile on his face as he hands her his offering. “I’m usually more of a quick hook up or one night stand kind of guy so roses aren’t really my jam. But I have a good feeling about you.”

“Nerd,” she scoffs, her blushing cheeks and sheepish smile hidden behind the bouquet.

~~~

They go go karting and play mini golf, and y/n even gives Xavier permission to pull his cheesy little stunt of guiding her golf swing so she’ll make it in the hole.

He wins her a stuffed animal with his skee ball tickets before the pair finally settles down and grabs some slices of pizza.

“Having fun?” Xavier asks.

“Honestly? More fun than I thought I’d have,” y/n admits.

“Why were you so scared to go out with me anyway?”

“I wasn’t scared,” y/n corrects, silently staring down at her pizza. “Not of you. But of what you represent. No offense, but most white boys like you don’t want girls like me as a long term deal.”

“And what kind of girl are you?” Xavier asks, but his voice is sincere as he gazes into her eyes. His hand reaches across the table to gently grab a hold of hers, and she smiles.

“A poor Chicana girl living in the not so glamorous side of Los Angeles. A girl with no money, no fancy clothes. A girl with brown skin.”

“Well you know what I see? A strong, gorgeous, badass girl with the biggest fucking heart I’ve ever seen. None of that shit matters. Not to me. I only see you, y/n. Just you.”

She lets him lean across the table and kiss her, the taste of Coca Cola still fresh on his lips. And she savors the taste, savors Xavier, and allows the walls around her to crumble until it’s just the two of them together.

And being alone with Xavier really isn’t all that bad.

~~~

1984

“Babe, guess what?” Xavier grins as he flops on top of her resting figure on the bed. The mattress springs creek and groan and y/n lets out a small groan at the impact, quick to shove him off.

“It better be good,” she sighs, smiling slightly when he presses a quick kiss to her forehead.

“You and me working as camp counselors baby, just us together for the rest of the summer.”

“Counselors? I don’t know... I didn’t really plan on spending my summer in some sweaty camp,” y/n replies, nose scrunched slightly in disdain.

“Oh, c’mon, it’ll be fun! Montana will be there and so will Chet and Ray. Plus you’ll get to see this gorgeous face every single day,” Xavier grins cheekily, and y/n lightly swats him away.

“Wouldn’t you rather go to the beach or something?”

“C’mon, y/n, please,” Xavier begs, chin resting on her abdomen as he stares up at her with his big blue puppy dog eyes. She hates him for it.

“I hate you sometimes, you know,” she frowns, fingers carding through his blonde hair. But Xavier smiles triumphantly knowing he’s won the battle, and rests his head happily against her breasts.

“I know,” he sighs happily, arms wrapped around her waist. The smell of her mother’s cooking wafts through the house and reminds him of how hungry he is. “Can we have some of your mom’s, umm... what’s it called again?”

“Chilaquiles,” y/n answers with a fond smile.

“Right, chilaquiles,” he affirms, and despite how terrible his accent is she appreciates the effort. He’s been trying his best to learn, and y/n doesn’t think Xavier realizes just how much it means to her.

She watches him get up out of bed and stop in the doorway, shooting an expectant look at her as she remains lying in bed.

“Which camp are we counseling at exactly?” Y/N asks, top half propped up on the back of her elbows.

“Camp Redwood. I heard it’s to die for.”

[redeyedwarricr]

𝕷𝖚𝖈𝖞’𝖘 𝕴𝖓𝖙𝖗𝖔𝖉𝖚𝖈𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓

                              𝔏𝔦𝔣𝔢 𝔥𝔞𝔰 𝔞 𝔥𝔞𝔟𝔦𝔱 𝔬𝔣 𝔨𝔫𝔬𝔠𝔨𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔪𝔢 𝔡𝔬𝔴𝔫                                         𝔅𝔲𝔱 ℑ 𝔞𝔩𝔴𝔞𝔶𝔰 𝔤𝔢𝔱 𝔟𝔞𝔠𝔨 𝔲𝔭

〔 ODEYA RUSH, NINETEEN, CIS FEMALE, NECROMANCY〕╰   LUCY COHEN just  came  over  half - blood  hill .  you  know ,  the child of ARES who  was  claimed FOUR YEARS ago ?  i've  heard  chiron  say  that  she  is WELL INTENTIONED & LOYAL ,  but  if  you  ask  the  aphrodite  kids ,  they'd  say  they're IMPULSIVE & EXPLOSIVE .  i'd  say  they  remind  me  of flannels tied around her waist, band t shirt, scuffed up boots, yelling at the night sky, angry tears, piercing red eyes, especially  since  they're FOR THE NEW CABINS . 

Stats

Name: Lucy Cohen

Nicknames: Lucifer, Devil, devil spawn, devil eyes, evil.. she does like Lu though.

Age: 19

Birthday: March 13, 2001

Gender + Pronouns: cis female, she/her

Sexuality: Bisexual

Godly parent: Ares

Abilities: Telumkinesis, enhanced physical prowess, the blessing of ares, necromancy.

Ethnicity: Ashkenazi Jewish

Birthplace: Portsmouth Virginia

Nationality: American

Faceclaim: Odeya Rush

Height: 5 foot 2

Hair color: brown

Eye color: red

Dominant hand: she is right handed

Distinguishing features: her red eyes, and a large scar along her shoulder, from the battle of Manhattan

Personality + Aesthetic

Positive traits: Loyal, well intentioned, caring, passionate, sociable

Negative traits: Impulsive, Explosive, Intense, Snarky, Untrusting

Mbti: ESTP - The entrepreneur

Enneagram: 4, the individualist

Archetype: The adventurer

Hogwarts house: Gryffindor

Zodiac: Pisces

Candle scent: Mango Mai Tai

Element:Fire

Alignment: Neutral Good

Kinsey Scale: 3

Deadly sin: Wrath

Greatest Virtue: Humility

Fatal flaw: her un trusting nature, she doesn’t let others do things to help her, or follow others because in her experience, they will just lie to you and let you down.

Fashion: She dresses in a 90’s grunge fashion. She has one pair of combat boots that she found at a thrift store. So she almost always wears those, with some torn up jeans, flannels, and a crap ton of band t shirts.

Goals + Desires: she wants to be good. Like she wants to be good at being good. She really tries so hard, but she feels like the world is stacked up against her for her to be a bad person. She just wants to be good and for everyone else to see that she is good.

Biggest Fear: Herself. She is so afraid that she is just lying to herself, that maybe she really is bad. That maybe they were right. She is afraid that she isn’t a good person, and she just doesn’t know how to handle that.

Most Irrational Fear: Alektorophobia: a fear of chickens. One of the houses that she was at for about a year when she was eight was on a farm, that had chickens. She had to feed the chickens everyday, and the way they would run at her always freaked her out, she usually ended up dropping the food and running away crying. To this day she swears up and down that chickens are evil.

Hobbies: She enjoys practicing with her labrys.  She can knit, not that she is telling anyone that. She is a total comic book nerd, and has a stack of those under her bed that she reads when bored. She likes to party as well, and man don’t start a prank war with her. She loves to pull pranks on people.

Habits: She usually always has some sort of squishy ball or rubber band that she plays with to keep her hands busy, she constantly drums her fingers on her thigh, on her books, really on anything. She also is always humming or singing when she has to think.

Favorites

Food: Pizza man, like the good greasy kind.

Drink: Diet Coke, she is addicted to that stuff.

Movie: She would probably try and say some cool horror movie, but really, it’s Monty python.

Book: The whole Harry Potter series, especially book 2 when people all start thinking he is the heir of slytherin and evil. She relates.

Song: American Music by the violet femmes

Flower: Tiger Lilies  

Animal: Dragons or penguins.

Season: Summer

Day: Saturday’s, the best parties are always then.

Month: May/June, that time right on the border of spring and summer.

Time of day: she enjoys either the night on the weekends, or that time right before dawn, when everything is calm and peaceful.

Camp stuff

When did they arrive:About 2 months before she turned 15 .

When were they claimed: A week after arriving.

How were they claimed: She was learning to soar and found an ease with each of the practice weapons. As she came out to spar, she was bathed in a red glow, being claimed by ares.

Opinion on the new cabins: She is for them.

Why? : Well she doesn’t believe it to be her place to tell someone they don’t belong. She spent so long searching for home that she believes everyone deserves a home.

Opinion on Lyssa: She can go choke on a bag of dicks for all she cares.

Go to weapon: Her Labrys, which turns into a bronze chain bracelet.

Ambrosia: Diet Coke, she really does have an addiction.

Favorite camp location: Fireworks beach

Quests: 2 so far.

Character Inspirations:

Charlie Pace from Lost

Amy Sciuto from NCIS

Mira from The Hollow

Beauregard from Critical Role

Scorpia from She-Ra

Amethyst from Steven Universe

Pinterest: https://pin.it/4ELniEm

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4Ub7wTuKjC2K2HED8SLyDR?si=77ETvy_BQDOWpKiv9OeSWw

Story

Lucy is a nineteen year old daughter of Ares. She was born to Talia Cohen. Her mother died during childbirth, leaving her to her grandfather. When he first saw her, he screamed, yelling about the devil, and fled, claoming he would not take her. She was born with red eyes, like the devil, as her grandfather said. Her mother had no other family, so she was placed into the system. She had been given the name Lucy by one of the nurses from when she was born. As noone had given her a name, it was decided that Lucy, inspired by Lucifer due to her grandfather's reaction. and due to her eyes, would be perfect.

She bounced back and forth between homes, never staying too long due she was labeled a problem child. No one wanted to help the kid who freaked everyone out, that no one wanted. They let her struggle in school, and when she didn’t behave like they wanted, she was sent away again.

This continued on for years, no one ever really believing in her. Except for one person. In her fifth grade year, she had a teacher who didn’t believe what everyone else said, but instead tried to really see her. She was the first person ever to tell her that she was good, that she was kind, and that she was loved. Lucy still holds on to these memories, she uses them as reminders when she spirals, and when she needs to be reminded that she is good. She tries to live up to her former teachers belief in her, and uses her as the memory to drive her towards remaining a nice person.

When she was 14, she was in a home in Virginia Beach. When she was walking home from school with one of the older children from the home when they were attacked by a monster. The other child revealed themselves to be sent from Camp Halfblood, and that they were here to bring her to camp.

She has been at camp Halfblood since, and is a year rounder. She has never tried to return to the 'real world'. Instead she stays at camp, and apparently occasionally, even fights in legitimate wars. During this war, she comes to the realization that she can raise fallen enemies to fight with her. That was a crazy ability that she didn't realize she was capable of before the war, and 3 months later, is still trying to process.

Wanted Connections

Family in everything but name: these are Lucy’s closest friends here at camp. They are the ride or die friends, and they always have each other’s backs.

Pinterest: https://pin.it/7KNCY8z

Adventurers live on forever: these are the ones that Lucy has gone on quests with, or even does just general adventures around camp with.

Pinterest: https://pin.it/5eBUyo0

Cheaters never win: This is someone that Lucy opened her heart to, and really felt she loved, until she found them with someone else. It has been about a year now, but she is still out for blood, holding out for her revenge.

Pinterest: https://pin.it/3bl7zz5

Forgive your enemies but never forget their names: Everyone has got to have some sort of enemy, right? Now Lucy has plenty of people in the past that make fun of her, but her and this person are legitimately at each other’s throats.

Pinterest: https://pin.it/3TODMLU

If your life is going to be short, do dumb things: these are the crackhead friends. Like Lucy and then get into trouble when they are together. They are the prank era, the partiers, they just want to live loud and wild while they can.

Pinterest: https://pin.it/3TODMLU

In the dark of night, clarity is found: When lucy can not sleep, she tries to sneak out and walk at night around the camp. This is a person who she started to see as well, and often they walk in silence, but sometimes this person gets to see the real Lucy, hidden by her loud exterior.

Pinterest: https://pin.it/18It3rC

Kindling a new flame; Lucy doesn’t know how it happened, but she somehow has found herself crushing over someone again. Lucy gets all embarrassed around this person, and she just wants to hold their hand. This can be one sided or reciprocated.

Pinterest: https://pin.it/3WH03Fe

Once I idolized you, now I despise you: Imagine like Percy and Nico, Annabeth and Luke kinda thing. This is someone that Lucy used to look up to when she came to camp. She followed this person around, and was attached to them. They could do no wrong in her eyes.. until they did. Now she can barely even look at them. She is hurt and broken up inside.

Pinterest: https://pin.it/u2dXuvp

Sour little lemon: This is some person who just won't leave her alone. Like she has no interest in this person, but they won’t leave her alone. Kinda like a Gaston Belle situation.

Pinterest: https://pin.it/24HvjNp

Whoever said words don’t hurt lied: Lucy tries really hard to get most people to like her, and while people are nicer here at camp, you still always have those people who see the eyes and her name and go to the devil and make fun of her. She says it doesn’t hurt, that she is used to it, but that is a bold faced lie.

Pinterest: https://pin.it/2XeXyu4

[helpinghanikan]

Pet or guilt trip, your choice

Avengers (and Matt Murdock) x reader

Sum: no home is complete without a pet, or second best

Steve Rogers:

           After the first attack on New York gifts and presents started pilling in the lobby. For every member of the team at that point, even the ones who the public didn’t know the name of. Flowers, candy, clothes, jewelry, and sometimes straight up cash. Most were donated (save for the drawings, and that one necklace Nat was not going to let go of), and among those gifts were Lady.

           She was a little golden retriever puppy, pink bow around her neck. Security guard (a wall of a man) was cooing over her when you had walked in.

           Accepting her on Steve’s behalf she fit snuggly in the crook of one arm. The other holding the files. Help from fellow employees pressed elevator buttons and open doors kept Lady from touching the floor.

           You sat Lady down after seeing him in your office. Opening the door and nudging her inside with the toe of your pump. She goes right for the next available source of attention in the room, Steve kneeling to her level. She whines and goes for his face, tiny paws trying to get traction on his shirt collar and get to more of his face.

           “Careful of Cujo there,” You say, papers on the desk.

           “I don’t- okay, later.” Another movie added to the list. “Who is this?”

           “Our child,” You said, an arsenal of guilt ready to be used.

         Tony Stark:

         You’d need more hands to count how many times you’ve tried to get a pet. Tony has dodged every attempt with legit reason; cats knock things over, dogs are a lot of work and messy, birds? No, just no.

           This helped create the “Stark adoption day”, your personal project. Part passion project, part proof that you are more than just some trophy on Tony’s arm. Working with any shelter that will have you (which was a good majority) and setting up the meet and greet with dogs, cats and everything else in the park. Unsurprisingly it was maybe an hour before people started asking about Tony.

           It was a little deflating that people were more concerned about Tony than the animals. This was why you had gotten to Tony before he made his entrance. Making sure he’s not wearing anything that he wouldn’t want ruined.

           Adoption rates went through the roof. Hand picking the oldest, least desirable pets and putting them on the for-front. Tony holding a single eyed orange cat was still being cycled around, another where you had stolen his sunglasses for a brief moment and placed them on the bridge of an old saint-bernard. Both of them were adopted within the hour on that day.   

         Thor:

         Thor had a horse, Thor had a big fucking horse.

           “What’cha got there?” A lame question with an obvious answer.

           He had this confidence that everyone should envy. Even when he doesn’t know where or what’s going on, he is still so sure. Just like now, holding black reins of this dun horse, tail black, mane matching.

           “Gail,” A simple name that he probably didn’t pick out. “She’s from the neighbors,” Neighbors who were over two miles away. “Come, come here.”

           His hand lays over yours, guiding you to stroke her neck.

           Whether you had experience with horses or not it didn’t matter. Gail was Thor’s girl. A free ranged horse that wondered your property, coming into her little barn when the weather is less than pleasant.

           Thor gets this look on his face when brushing Gail. Every bit of stress, every forced laugh and smile is gone when he mounts her up. How could you say no to that?

         Bucky Barnes:

           He hadn’t noticed you yet, sitting on the patio steps. The rented cottage was angled so the sun caught whatever rested on the porch. Usually it were local cats, this time they were joined by your man. Scratching his head at just the right angle, gleam of metal sending magic over the stone.

           He’s a tuxedo with white on only his back-left paw. Following the little white dots along the stone and up the wall. Both paws reaching out to slap at the light swishing side to side, following it left to right and back down to the porch. He was one of those outdoor cats, born in the wild. Scratched up ears and skinny body to match.

           Bucky raises his arms up and down for the sun to catch it. Kitty not having a care in the world no matter how close he got to the large man. Eventually attacking Bucky’s leg, pressing against it and bouncing back. Turning around and attacking again, maybe trying to confuse his prey.

           “Oh God, I love it.” Wanda had texted when you sent the video.

           Kitty was your host for the duration of the small vacation. Probably hanging around because of the food you had left out, letting out a jagged meow while trotting up whenever Bucky leaves the cabin.

           By the last day Kitty sat next to the bags stacked by the door. Staring, daring like he was daring you to try and leave without him.

         Natasha Romanoff:

         His name is Clint and he’s a bastard.

           Just like the man he was named after, the large African gray parrot hung out in the highest points of the apartment when alone.  Sometimes flying down to chill on the counter or couch when Nat was home, bouncing around the apartment while she would watch amused.

           He was adopted when Natasha officially moved in. Someone for you to be with while she was away. She really loved him, cooing at him when perched on her shoulder. Speaking in any language she knew as a greeting.

           Nat was Clint’s obvious favorite. The moment she was gone he would go into his corner. Waiting for you to be in sight before throwing an actual tantrum. There was a real chance that Clint was a cat reincarnated; going into your kitchen and knocking down the hung-up mugs, opening the cabinets and marching on the plates when he locks himself in. He’ll scream into the void between the couch and wall, grab at chips or snacks as your bringing them to your mouth. In those few minutes that he’s calm he’ll stay in front of you and just stare;

           “Bring mom back, or I’ll tear this house apart.”

           The worst? He can speak, but only in Russian. You hadn’t learned what he was saying, but he was likely cursing you out.

         Bruce Banner:

         She’s a street beggar that had a love for fried chicken. With a meow too high for a cat her age, not caring about dangers and stretching deep. Her front paws against your leg, as though she just happens to be leaning against you.

           She does this every day when you pass. Accepting whatever sort of meaty substance you have at the moment. Seeming to glare when you had the audacity to offer a vegetable. At one point she followed after eating the treat, it was a spur of the moment decision to scoop from the old cat, her nails barely pressing into the cloth of your sleeves.

           It honestly took a few days before Bruce noticed Peppermint. She was an older cat, her all black coat had some shimmer of gray from age. Long haired and only showed her bratty side at the vet, or when she was being brushed.

           You really, really should have told him about her when you first got home. He wasn’t home very often, a little house outside of a city. Even the mildest mannered of the Avengers was almost never home. This was among the excuses you had used for randomly adopting a cat.

           “She was alone, like me.” You are a real asshole sometimes.

           Of course, you never blamed Bruce for having to be gone. You’ve spent years separated until the Avengers brought you back together, another few more when he disappeared into the sky. Using all that for a cat? She better be one amazing cat.     

         T’Challa:

         The man has battle rhinos, you’d think he could handle a French bulldog.

           Cosmo was a spoiled coworker’s birthday present. She lost interest in him after he passed his puppy phase. Her comments about taking him to the shelter had perked your ears, swooping in to save the little boy right behind her.

           He’s a real brat, you love him, but he’s the worst.

           You’ve just never realized how bad he was until T’challa insisted you visit for a longer period then expected. This was the journey of many firsts for Cosmo; first time on a plane, first time leaving country and the first time in Wakanda. First time meeting Okoye, who just watched this little black ball raise on his paws and stare at her on the plane seat. He growled deep in his throat, whining up at her and she just stared back. Eventually he just started barking, sitting on his butt and barking to the sky. Demanding she pick him up.

           She just smiles down at him, head on her hand. Seeing how long this boy was going to whine until he gave up. Cosmo was going the entire flight, Okoye would make a great mother.

           Shuri’s face lighting up was worth bringing the little booger along. It wasn’t that there were no small dogs in Wakanda, or that she didn’t know what a French bull dog was, it was just a breed that wasn’t necessary to adopt from the outside world. With both hands she holds him up to her face, more than willing to watch him while you met up with T’challa.

           His face looking at Cosmo was one of “What did you bring into my home?”

           And he kept that face every time Cosmo stared up at him with that old man wheezing. Or when Cosmo would take a sock from those placed out, running from the room with it like he had just robbed a bank. His worst offense is to have the audacity to squeeze his firry butt between you and T’chall at night. Too deep in sleep to hear the names your man was calling your second favorite boy.

Pietro Maximoff

Nothing can cement a person to one place like a sleeping pet.

           They’ve been stuck to the same spot for the past hour. The black and white husky resting her head on his lap, one paw over the knee as a way to say “please, don’t move.”

           Pietro’s face was annoyed, but his dominate hand kept a good rhythm of petting Savannah’s head. The other flicked through channels, occasionally looking your way. Maybe to see what you were doing (still on the laptop), maybe to look for help. Not that you’d ever mess with your copper and white colored princess.

           She would nip at your legs, howl and scream when the food would take too long. Keeping Pietro wrapped around her paw whenever he left the house. Growling low in her throat when he’d tell her no. She would do this until he grabbed her leash, muttering in his mother language as she wiggled with excitement.

   Peter Parker:

           Peter held the little guy way too close to his face. Looking at the white and fawn spotted bunny in his hands, inspecting him as though he might not have been an actual rabbit. In his defense Happy was cute little guy.

           It was like a divorce from a marriage that never happened. Happy was a plan that took weeks in the making. Infecting each other with the Bun disease after watching one too many “how to care for your rabbit” videos in the wee hours of the morning. He spent most his life at your place, taking him Peter’s a few times a week during “Dates”.

           It wasn’t that Aunt May had explicably said no, she just gestured around the apartment. “We barely fit in here.” The woman was immune to the bunny charms, still more than willing to hold him, though. Making kissy noises and cooing.

           This was Happy’s life now. Seeing his Daddy every “date” night. The two of your sitting across from each other on the floor, legs stretching out for your feet to be flat against each other. Creating a tiny carrel for Happy to choose which parent he will be cuddled by.

         Stephen Strange:

         It wasn’t so much Stephen had said no that Wong did. He had the look of a man who had seen the effects of cats on old books and birds in wide open areas. Dogs don’t seem to be on the list of preferred pets for those working in mystic arts. They’re too good for them, anyway.

           “It’s good karma,” You had said, door chiming when opened.

           “Karma’s not real, Sweetie,” The nickname of condescension.

           “You’re fucking attitude is. Hi, Marisa.”

           There is probably a reason dogs aren’t chosen for mystic arts. They’re too much of a distraction, spending hours with these girls and boys. Filling bowls, washing cages and scrubbing puppies cleaned the soul.

           Stephen had stood off to the side at first. One of those poor kids whose parents had never let him have a real pet (maybe a fish, but you can’t pet a fish). Slowly getting more accommodated with the dogs getting too excited around him. Then he met Beorn, the adult male Newfoundland who was getting on in age.

           Because of his age he wasn’t the first option for adoption, a mass of black hair laying in his cage. Beorn nudged against his hand, a deep noise at the back of his throat that said, “I’m old and deserve pets. Get to it, youngster.”

           Stephen’s hands disappeared into the black mass. Reaching for miles before he found the body and Beorn groaned at the attention. Stephen fell in love with him at that moment. Going with you to the shelter and just so happen to wander towards Beorn. Taking credit for volunteering while he only stays with this old bear.

           “I want him,” He one day admitted on the way home.

           “Talk to your work-husband.”

         Matt Murdock:

         “I don’t need a service dog,” He says.

           “I’ll pay for it.” You says.

           “Sweetie, Angel, no.” The double pet name. It’s on now.

           “Come, how’d you get that busted lip?”

           Thug two was quieter than thug one

           “Walked into a door.” He says.

           “And your ribs?”

           Big crow-bar, bigger guy

           “Went hard into a table.”

           “You know what can keep you from doing that? A service animal.” Beers clink between your fingers while walking into the room.

           “I have you for that.” He says.

           “Wow,” You keep the bottle from his hands. Setting it on the coffee table instead.

           “I didn’t mean that,” He reaches for the bottle. Missing by a few inches, leaning forward and pushing it gently into his hands. “I think the cane says I’m blind enough. I don’t have time for it either.”

           “Dogs are suffering you know,” a drink of beer. You’re planning something. “And their shelter is underfunded.”

           There it is; his little, bleeding heart, angel. “What do they need?”

           “Lawyer on retainer, paperwork and stuff. “Another drink, a louder gulp. You hardly ever asked for anything, let alone a legal favor. “All your clients with them will be innocent. Ya know?”

           Matt nods, “Foggy’ll love it.”

                                       ------------------------

Carol Danvers:

         “This is just a favor to a friend,” Mr. Fury says walking with you through the house.

           Middle of nowhere was an understatement, surrounded by fields owned by no one and woods belonging to the deer. You should probably ask if there was wifi in the place. That the phone line is connected out here is a serious long shot.

           “In exchange for that favor,” You’ve only known this man for a few hours. Long enough for car ride and brief introduction that told you nothing but his name. In that time, you have learned he seemed to like being dramatic. Grabbing the carrier on the kitchen table and setting it on the floor with a clunk for dramatics. “He’s your problem now.”

           The orange kitty inside obviously didn’t share Mr. Fury’s love for dramatics. Just sitting in the loaf position inside of his crate, barely acknowledging that he now had a way to roam around.

           “Carol has a cat?” You ask.

           The floor creaks as you squat down to see inside the crate better. Cat now acting like you meant nothing to him while he stretches out. Walking out and sniffing your outstretched fingers. A purr deep in his throat gets louder when he rubs against them, spinning to trail his tail between your fingers.

           “He’s more then that. Just make sure he’s in front of your if they break in here.” Mr. Fury says, holding out a card to you. “When that happens give me a call.”

                             -----------------

Shang-Chi:

It takes a minute to realize that a turtle had made it’s home in Shang’s apartments. It’s enclosure blending a little too well with the shelves, lamps and junk that decorated Shang’s living space.

“That’s Sheldon-.” Shang begins.

“LAME!” Yells Katy from the couch.

“-Xialing gave him to me a bit ago. She said he ‘matched the décor and my attitude.’ Whatever that means.”

Seeing Sheldon making his way around the room. You had to agree. Especially as it was a pancake tortoise that moved around faster than you’d assume it to be.

Now that you knew Sheldon was there he was hard to miss. He walked through the tiles of the kitchen when let out of his enclosure and chilled on the carpet when Shang would get ready in the morning.

“I thought I was your pushup cheerleader.” You said one morning from your shared bed.

It was a blessing and a curse that Shang used pushups to wake up in the morning. A blessing because who doesn’t like to wake up to a beautiful view? And a curse because of the constant suggestion that you join him.

This morning he was doing the set as usual. With Sheldon choosing to hang out right under his owner. Completely confident in his dad’s ability to not just slam to the ground.

[trashcanband4]

Father Daughter Duo Ch.2

Chapter 1 Chapter 3  Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6

Chapter Title: Traveling. Pairing: Eventual Daryl x Oc. Setting: Before the Prison, still not into the story line of the tv show. Word Count: 2,375. Warnings: attempted rape in this chapter and rape in a future chapter along with other messed up situations. You have been warned. Note: Also another crap/builder chapter.

I had always been attached to my dad. Even though I never went hunting with him or even participated in target practice. I was always around him, always there to hand him tools when he needed them or hold the flashlight as he worked on his truck, Old Red, that he tried his best to keep in good condition even though we never seemed to have enough money to buy the parts that he needed. I was always quiet and always did what I was asked. He was a hard, stern, and short tempered man, but he had his small ways of showing how much he cared. When my mother died and the world pretty much came to an end it only made his fuse that much shorter.

So when we figured out that the place in Atlanta that was supposed to be safe was a danger zone we set out together in search of living people. We found some in an old nursing home. Most of them were Mexican and were always speaking Spanish, but they welcomed us when they figured out that we weren't there to take their weapons and medical supplies. The fact that we had raided a small sporting goods store helped, because they needed all the protection they could get. We stayed there for quite a while and had I started to come out of my shy shell. I was getting to know the people. Surprisingly Dad had too, even though he had always been a bit racist.

Guillermo, the leader of the group, and I had became friends and he had even started teaching me how to speak Spanish when ever we had the time. My dad kept telling me that I needed to be learning how to defend myself and not useless stuff like learning a different language, but at that time I felt safe enough not to bother with gun lessons.

"Usted es un hombre guapo" Guillermo told me to say it so I tried to mimic his perfect accent. I guess I got it right because he flashed his perfect teeth at me in a big smile. "You're not so bad looking yourself." I blushed and looked at myself. I was nothing special. My dishwater brown hair was a mess of waves, there were a few zits on my face, and I had lost a little weight over the past two weeks, but I was still what I liked to call full figured even thought I was a little bigger than that.

I looked up at Guillermo feeling the heat on my cheeks as he put his hand on my face. The nice warmth of his skin against mine didn't last long though, because we heard my dad clear his throat from the door way of the storage room we were working in. His eyes were hard as he grabbed me by the arm and gently pulled me out into the hallway.

"Ya can't trust guys around ya like that baby girl. Yer twenty years old ya should know that men are gonna try to take advantage of ya." I shocked myself when I rolled my eyes at him. "I don't think he's that kind of guy, but still, don't be alone with him from now on ok?"

"Yeah, ok." He was about to walk away. "Hey Dad?" he turned around and looked at me with the usual hard expression he wore on his face now days. "Wanna teach me how to use this thing?" I held up the gun and he nodded. We were walking down the hallway when we heard everyone screaming. The nursing home had somehow been over run. There is no doubt that I would have died that day if it wasn't for my dad. My back was against the wall, literally, and a walker was at my front as I screamed and struggled to hold it off of me. Dad swooped in, shot the walker with his shot gun and shoved me to the back door of the building. We ran and jumped into Old Red and left the city for good. Soon we were driving through a little town that I wasn't familiar with and neither of us had spoken since we left the massacre of the old group. "Hey Dad," I broke the silence and he hummed at me letting me know he was listening. "Thanks for saving me back there."

"Yer my daughter, I'll always save ya." I was quiet again for a while.

"Hey Dad," he hummed again. "I love ya."

"I love ya too Bay." After that he started explaining everything about the guns as we drove. He taught me what bullet went with what gun and how to load and clean all of them. Though, he told me not to try cleaning the gun unless he was there to help me, because it was a bit complicated.

It took us a month of traveling to find the next group and I knew the second we were easily welcomed into the creepy church that we wouldn't be staying there for long. To say the people that inhabited the place were over religious would be an understatement. They were dead set on repopulating the earth. All the females of "eligible age", which from what I could tell was 14 years old, were pregnant and all of the men were pigs. The leader of the group insisted that I wear the same drab pastel colored home sewn dresses of all the other women and that I give my gun and knife to my father. I did as I was asked because these were, after all, living people.

It was our second week there and I was sleeping on a twin sized cot in a spare room of the church when I felt my covers move. A hand covered my mouth stifling my scream as a guy slipped into my bed. "Shush." The man who whispered to me flipped me over onto my back. The face of Matt, one of the younger men in the group who was with a woman who was seven months pregnant with his baby, was above my face. I struggled to get away from him, but he got on top of me and held me down. "Time to have some fun." He never took his hand off of my mouth. I was hitting him and pushing at him with my free hand but it was pointless. "Don't act like you don't want me. I see the way you look at me." He removed his hand from my mouth only to replace it with his mouth and force his tongue onto mine. He tasted disgusting, but the revolting taste was soon replaced by the coppery one of blood because I caught his tongue between my teeth and bit down as hard as I could. He screamed and slapped me and I took the opportunity to scream my head off in hopes that my dad would hear me.

The next thing I knew Matt was being pulled up off of me. The sickening crunch of a bone being broken mixed together with a scream and a thud as Matt hit the nearby brick wall. Dad grabbed my hand and pulled me up out of the bed then stuffed all my things into my bag and tossed it to me. We made a quick stop by his room where we grabbed all of his things and he shoved a gun into my hand. "We're getting' out of here. These people are batshit crazy. I ain't havin' some kid tryin' nock up my Bailey bug." He hadn't called me that in a long time. We snuck out of the church through the back door then once again hopped into Old Red and were on the road again.

A week later we were scavenging through a store miles away from Atlanta when we heard the bell above the door ring followed by heavy footsteps that could only belong to men. Dad pulled me down behind the cash register. I looked at him waiting to know what we were supposed to do. He looked at me with the same light blue eyes that were on my face and held his finger over his mouth. "That little red head's a nice piece of ass. What are we going to do with her when we're done?" I heard a cheerful male voice ask.

"What we did with all the rest, kill her." Another man who replied sounded completely disinterested in the question. I looked at Dad with wide eyes. I knew what the men were talking about and I was afraid that my fate would be the same if we didn't make it out of this. He held his hand out palm down and made a motion like he was bouncing a ball, 'stay calm'. I took a quiet and slow deep breath before I nodded. He looked at the gun in my hands, which I had gotten good at shooting over the days of traveling and scavenging, and raised his eyebrows. 'Are you good on ammo?' I nodded my head again and he looked around the cash register quickly taking a peek at the men then continued our silent conversation. I was supposed to shoot the man on the left and he was supposed to shoot the man on the right. He held up three fingers and began counting down. As soon as the last finger went down we popped up from behind the register and shot them both. Dad landed a shot straight to a severely plump mans forehead and my bullet hit a man with a bald head and dark goatee in the shoulder.

We hightailed it back to the truck dodging bullets from other men we didn't know were outside. It was a miracle that we got out of there unharmed. After that we stuck to scavenging random houses in rural areas. This was fine with me, because Dad being the kind to think ahead, gathered things like seeds, tools, and what ever guns and ammo he might find. I, on the other hand, gathered things like clothing, blankets and cooking supplies. I even managed to find some knitting needles and a good supply of yarn. I liked to crochet, knit and almost every thing crafty like that. Before the world went to heck I had started up my own little business selling stuff made out of duct tape. Like flower pens, purses, clutches and wallets. Everyone always thought these were useless skills that were only good for lazy antisocial people. Well, they were wrong.

Anyway, we had been staying in an abandoned farm house out in the woods for a while, because the walker population here seemed minimal and we were tired of sleeping in Old Red. I was sitting by one of the widows watching for my father when he came walking up the rotting porch steps with his newly found compound bow and two squirrels in hand. I wrinkled my nose as I walked out on the porch and he told me to be thankful for what food I got. "I am thankful, I just like rabbit better." He laughed.

"That's my girl." He smiled at me and squeezed my shoulder approvingly. "The only wild animal your mother would eat was deer." I looked at the floor missing my mom and neither of us said anything after that. Dad just skinned and cleaned the squirrel then I cooked it on the gas stove that was in the house. We had just finished eating the bland meat when Dad broke the silence. "I saw a prison when I was huntin' earlier. The place was swarming with walkers, just roaming around, trapped in the fences. I would say I felt sorry for them, but they were all inmates." I thought about what he was saying wondering how the prisoners would have gotten infected if they were all kept in cells.

The little farm house was fine, but we were running out of places to scavenge and gas for the truck was getting scarce. We were constantly having to run from the dead as well as the living. Him mentioning the fences gave me an idea. "Hey Dad." He looked up from the knife he was sharpening. "What if we could kill all of the eaters in the prison and live there from now on?"

"Are you serious?" he had his eyebrows raised at me and a joking look on his face.

"Yeah from the way you talk just camping in the yard would be better protection than staying here. If those fences can hold in that many walkers it could hold them out too, right?" he seemed to think about it for a while.

"We will check it out in the morning. Right now you just go get some sleep. I'll stay and watch out for another one of those herds." I did as he said and went into the bedroom and went to sleep.

Dad woke me up around two in the morning, judging from the battery powered clock on the night stand, for me to take watch. The night went by fast in the anticipation of seeing the prison that Dad was talking about. He came out of the house at sunrise and he started putting all the stuff in the truck. "Dad what are you doin'? I thought we were goin' to the prison." I had been anticipating a hike, not a drive.

"We are. I think I know how to get there without cutting' through the woods. If I do find it we can hide the truck there and we wont have to leave it at this house and hike to it every time we need to go somewhere." I didn't say anything back. I just put my gun on the dash and got in the truck.

We drove for a good while and I was starting to wonder if Dad had gotten us lost. I was about to ask him about it when the prison came into sight. I stared open mouthed at it and I heard Dad chuckle from the driver's seat. "Ya still want to live here?" I couldn't speak.

Daryl Tags: @jodiereedus22 @mtngirlforever @zzeacat @winchester-angel@moodygrip @beegnc @hells-mistress @lighthope08 @sapphire1727@luisadontcurr @chloebabyboo @ilkaeliseb @twdeadfanfic @ravengalaxia@1lluminaticonfirmed @my-current-fandom-is @nikkiloves-bailey @coffeebooksandfandom @lonewolf471 @gruffle1 @mblaqgi @calumstuffs@beltzboys2015-blog @neontiger007  @lonewolf471 @sourwolf-sterek32 @dixonluvv @dotslabyrinth @kayln97​ @art-flirt​

[ikesenhell]

The Unknown

Again., Chapter 13–a collaboration by myself and @a-shout-to-the-void​ AKA Vaya. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here, and Vaya’s here. NOTES: None this time.

It took a couple favors to pull together the gift. Mercifully, Shingen didn't ask. He’d heard. Slowly, Kenshin filed all of the clippings and pictures and minutiae in a small folder and tucked it under his arm, donning his best black suit for the funeral. He also brought a small satchel of baby things--a sort of christening gift for a child he’d heard about and hadn’t met.

He’d been in their shoes. He knew how well it hurt.

The funeral was brief and well-attended. Flowers littered the casket. Well-wishers pulled together in a quiet line to give the grieving couple their condolences. The baby (scarcely a month old, by the looks of him) started fussing. Fortunately Kenshin was next in line.

“Here,” he murmured, taking the infant from his mother. “I’ve got it.”

Williams gave him a relieved, worn smile. “Are you sure?”

“I’m certain.” He bounced the boy in his arms. “You’ve enough to worry about right now. I brought you something. What’s his name?”

Ieyasu fixed him with a baleful stare, but the baby hushed and curled against his chest.

“Mitsunari,” she murmured. “His name is Mitsunari. We’re calling him ‘Nari.”

“Nari is a good name,” Kenshin agreed, offering her the satchel. “Here. For you and your husband.”

Ieyasu took the bag with a murmured thanks, flipping it open to find a thick supply of toys, diapers, and the folder. As soon as they parsed the contents, Williams teared up and hid her face in his shoulder.

“Thanks,” Ieyasu managed through gritted teeth.

“It was nothing,” Kenshin answered. “Think nothing of it. If you need me to take Nari for now and sit behind you so you have a minute, consider it done.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“He’s fallen asleep, so I may as well.”

They didn't protest. Kenshin took up a spot behind the two and settled into an armchair, watching over the infant as he slept.

---

They spent their leave mostly looking after the ever-growing ‘Nari. He smiled like his father, big purple eyes flashing, his dark brown skin and dark hair so much like his mother that Ieyasu called him ‘Sunshine’ sometimes. When he slept, the two of them parsed through Mitsunari’s things in deathly slowness and figured out what best to do.

It was on one of those nights that she found the letters.

“Yasu?” She called, sitting at the familiar desk. “Come here. These are all addressed to us.”

Ieyasu crept into the room, brows knit. “What are?”

“Letters?”

Williams waved one at him. Sure enough, there it was, written in Mitsunari’s curving hand. Ieyasu cracked it open.

My dearest love,

You’re not paying attention to me right now, and I’m the happier for it. I know that sounds strange. It’s a little like watching a van Gogh painting in motion; like the whole of Starry Night twisted and shifted into life, the nest of your hair become the swirling stars and her body the curving grass.

I probably won’t share this with you--it’s not nearly as pretty as you both deserve. I could watch you for hours. I just might.

Sometimes now I have sympathy feelings when I watch you kiss her. Not pains. You’re kissing her neck right now. Your mouth is slightly open and your breath hitches when you ride your hips upward into hers, and I can feel the way it would drag were you on my neck instead. I wish, sometimes, that I could watch the way you looked at me when you have me where you like.

I would suggest taking a video, but I know that would embarrass you, and she’d likely say something about ‘evidence’, and I’d get terribly distracted by it anyway. Maybe part of the golden mystery is the mystery itself, though I doubt very much that I would ever grow tired of even the most quantified of your expressions.

God, I love you both.

It just struck me as I’m watching you now how your shoulders scallop and curve as you hold yourself. It’s like watching the shift of a tectonic plate--the whole world of my heart moves when you do.

I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.

The paper cracked as Ieyasu gripped it tighter. “Are they all like this?”

“I think so,” Williams murmured, opening another. “There are hundreds of them. This is what he was up to all those nights…”

He had to set down the letter before he destroyed it in his grasp, clutching his knees instead. What was he supposed to say? How could he even speak into reality the rage and love and sorrow and desperation swelling in his chest? “How could he say this wasn’t as pretty as we deserved?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “It’s beautiful.”

Ieyasu clenched at the air and rose, swinging his fist at nothing. Silence greeted him. “I think I need to go for a run.”

---

Kenshin came over sometimes. Mostly it was to help around the house; having a third person was something they’d grown used to in the years gone by, and now it was more needed than ever. He helped shift furniture and watch Nari and sometimes stayed for dinner late into the night, the quiet more comforting without tears in the void.

“Does it ever stop hurting?” Ieyasu asked him one night, still spinning his fork around on the empty plate.

The other man paused. Sometimes, when he was taken just off his guard, Ieyasu could see the sorrow hanging close to the surface. He was beautiful (not just handsome, beautiful), but sad, too. Those ocean eyes held an well.

“No.” Kenshin hesitated once more. “No, it doesn’t.”

They fell quiet again. At last he pushed back his icy blonde hair and sighed. “It doesn’t hurt the same after a while. At first it feels like burning, like you’ve swallowed lava and you’re just waiting for it to settle somewhere less painful, like if you just drink enough the burning will stop. Eventually it does, but the scald of it is still there. Some nights I’ll wake up and call for her. It’s been nine years. I keep thinking I’ll stop doing it. I never do.”

“I don’t--” Ieyasu inhaled sharply. “I can’t live like that.”

“You do,” Kenshin said, simple and clear. “You will. You’ll learn. Every day you’ll wake up and wonder how you manage. Every night you go to sleep knowing you did, somehow. It hurts forever--just differently.”

---

In the blink of an eye, Nari turned two. His second birthday party was a whimsical affair, with streamers and party hats and great mylar balloons all around the apartment. Ieyasu and Williams spent the morning whirling through the place, arranging and rearranging until they were satisfied that everything was presentable. And, of course, that everything was just out of reach of the toddler.

“That should do it!” Williams moved her hands away from the end of the streamer that was now securely pinned to the wall. “How does it look?”

Ieyasu leaned against the counter, arms folded. “It’s a two year old’s birthday party. Not everything has to be perfect.”

“But is it?” She insisted with a grin.

Ieyasu rolled his eyes. “Yes. Of course it is.”

In a few quick steps her arms were around him, and she pressed a quick kiss to his jawline before bouncing away again. “You picked up the cake, right?”

“Yes,” he grumbled. “Do you want me to check the fridge for it? Might’ve run away.”

“That would be great!” She sang. “What time is it?”

He checked his watch as he popped open the fridge. “Its uh--about one-thirty. Why?”

She flew back into his line of sight. “We should probably wake up Nari around quarter to two--oh, Yasu, he’s going to love this.” He glanced at the frosted behemoth taking up an entire shelf in the fridge. He’d ordered it from a bakery a few blocks north; they did custom cakes and were almost too thrilled over the thing. Iced giraffes covered the pastry, grinning up at him with goofy expressions.

“Please explain how our son’s favorite animal became giraffes,” he grumbled, swinging the door shut. “What’s so great about giraffes?”

“I think he became obsessed after Kenshin called Shingen one,” she commented lightly. “You know. Just fixated.”

As if on cue, their doorbell rang. From upstairs came the telltale shriek of an over-excited toddler, the pitter-patter of footsteps letting them know that Nari had escaped the allegedly ‘baby proof’ bed once more. Ieyasu muttered something about lying manufacturers and headed upstairs as she went for the door.

“Well, hello!” Williams gave a mock curtsy at the door. “You’re early.”

“Hello yourself.” Kenshin stepped through the door, a coat with a thick fur trim slung around his shoulders and a bag in his hands. “You told me two. I figured you might need help. Shingen couldn’t make it, but sends his regards.”

“Shinshin!” From atop the steps came a delighted scream. Ieyasu moved the baby gate just in time for Nari to toddle down the stairs, arms outstretched. “Shinshin!”

“Goodness!” And Kenshin swept the baby up into his arms, bouncing Nari into his elbow. “And you’re getting big! How tall are you now?”

Nari puffed himself up proudly. “Big!”

“Of course you are,” Kenshin chuckled. “Soon enough you’ll be as big as me. How old are you now? Can you show me?”

The baby held up two fingers. Williams giggled and leaned into Ieyasu, watching the other man head into their kitchen. “They’ve bonded, haven’t they?”

Ieyasu studied the odd pair with a slight crease between his brows. “Yeah. They have.”

“I don’t think I mind it.” She nudged him gently. “Do you?”

Did he mind it? How could he mind the way Nari smiled when Kenshin swung him around, or the way the boy giggled whenever Kenshin asked him a question? How could he mind at all when his son was so happy—

Only a vision of his husband gave him pause. Mitsunari, holding their son in his arms. Mitsunari, cutting the cake. Mitsunari, standing with Ieyasu and Williams as they took photo after photo of their little boy having a ball.

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I just—I don’t know.”

[tejoxys]

Play House

Eldritch blacksand, finally. I’ve been wanting to try my hand at this for years; I actually started this piece when I was house-sitting for friends of the family in... 2014. Damn.

----

The Dark comes down when the Light calls, down into the house where the Light wants to play. The humans are gone; the house sits far back on its long lawn redolent with sleeping flowerbeds, its peaked rooftops shiny with the rain tapping at dark windows.

-windows!- The Light leaps into them at once. The Light loves these gooey spans of sand bending light, sand flowing, sand made liquid pretending to be solid. In the temporal sea where the Light and Dark swim, the glass has already completed its crawl to the ground, the ground reclaimed by lava, the planet dashed into the sun—but here, where they focus their attention, the spans hang rain-kissed and shimmering.

The Dark is delighted to find that this house is full of wires, the new, clever wires that talk inside the walls—that talk across the world, distance less and less a barrier, edging closer to the way the Dark and Light talk to each other, close enough and strange enough to be oh so interesting—and dives for the nearest outlet.

A clear ringing reverberates from the windows, -wait-

Image of sparks, image of fire. The concept that this is bad. Bad means no. No means don’t do it.

The outlet hums back, -Why?-

-humans-

-The humans are gone.- Hesitation, a question.

-yes/no-

-Define instance of gone.-

The Light pulls down like an overhead projector screen the concept of linear progression, applies it to the house, narrows its scope to encompass the humans’ projected ownership of the house—do we know ownership? yes/no, disregard that part—, sets tags at either end to mark the boundaries of when the Dark is absolutely not allowed to cause damage to the house. A vague allusion to the concept of vacation, which is relevant, but so specific as to be painful, so they both drop it.

Something very like a sigh. -Yes.-

The matter settled, they race through the house like dolphins at play, the Light and the Dark.

They rejoin inside a lamp, at the twine of glass and wire. Abruptly, the Light leaps comet-sprightly to the center of the room. Calls for a game they last played where/when there were no wires or windows, where/when there were no houses. This game is a few strange rocks in the sea, raising their sun-bleached heads above the water, seldom visited.

The Dark hangs back. Unease. Concept of like and dislike, concept of novelty, dislike applied to novelty. This is one of the few differences that make them two, not one. The game will separate them further still, the fragments of themselves that are here/now cut off even more, if only for a time, but time will matter; that’s the point.

The Light sends out a call to the dirt below the house, and offers, -but fun-

Materials gather; in moments, the Light means to seal itself away, whether the Dark chooses to join in or not. Unease. U N E A S E. The Dark relents.

Two human bodies build themselves on the living room floor, amid dust mites and animal hairs on the glossy wood. Scanning up and down the house’s timeline for clues, they build themselves in the owners’ images. It takes several tries to iron out a workable nervous system, lungs that feed both heart and throat, and something like blood that flows. They don’t need to get so fancy, but the game is more fun when it’s realistic. Agonies crackle, spark-white behind eyelids wet as newborn butterflies, and then it’s done.

To pull a mask over one tiny spark of oneself and leave only tiny holes through which to gather sense, to leave the rest outside, pulsing, calling in muffled tones, waves breaking on rocks—it’s incomprehensible. Maybe their hearts first beat in response to how terrifying it is. But the first thing their bodies do, on opening their eyes, is laugh. The wild glint of teeth in open mouths is so shocking that the laughter redoubles on itself. Limbs flail; they both forgot proprioception. They edit accordingly, and engage in a messy fight with gravity to stand.

The bodies lurch around the darkened living room. They sit on every piece of furniture, laugh, open and close every drawer and cabinet, take turns trying on a pair of fleece slippers by the overstuffed chair, laugh some more. One stumbles, begins to fall; the other automatically reaches out and steadies. Marvels that the drive to help is built into the neural wiring. The one who nearly fell is mildly disappointed; was curious to feel gravity’s action on the glass-topped coffee table. They are both distracted by hands on skin.

The Light is fascinated, just as every time before, running hands slowly up and down long arms. These forms built of matter, the same as the house and everything in it, nothing but molecules that vibrate and collide but never collapse into one. Nerves that insist someone is there, someone is touching me, but they’re only ever right in the way that bodies can be right.

The Light is sad. The Dark knows what the Light would say, if they could hear each other now: -they never touch-

But the Dark likes it, the screaming contradictory signals. Pulls the Light closer so they lean together, twining wires that bounce their voices into orbit and back down to other wires waiting across the globe, but can’t speak to the ones running parallel beside them. So strange, so interesting. Sways the two of them, gently; sways again. The Light looks up, smiles like sunshine—expression of delight built-in. This game! Yes!

Spare photons tumble down to roll across the walls in diamonds and whirls. Static charge gathers in the basement to come rumbling up through the floor in rhythmic spikes. The bodies clasp hands, and begin to dance. A strange scent rolls out from the house, too-sweet stargazer lilies thrown on hot coals, scorched metal or blood and a breath of the sea; five deer grazing on the lawn bolt for the woods; a neighbor half a mile away across a field sees lights flashing in the empty house, and reaches for the phone.

The vastnesses of themselves they left outside know all of this, but the two sparks inside the bodies sway and spin, smile and know nothing else. The bodies gain grace with every step, balance improved a great deal when the Light and Dark pause to craft delicate aquifers deep inside the ear canals they forgot to connect to the outside, wincing through the crackle of drums and hammers forming, leaning on each other, laughing. Their blood is warm, the room is spinning.

The slick hissing of wheels on wet gravel never reaches them, but the slam of car doors does.

More swiftly than brain matter can react, the swirling lights are gone, the pounding music quenched, and the Light and Dark flat on the floor.

Knocking. More insistent knocking. Harsh rattling at the doorknob. “Hello?” Footsteps outside the windows and an arcing flashlight beam. “Police! We know you’re there.”

The Dark and Light look at each other; the whites of their eyes glint in the beams being swung through every window. To disperse these forms, or not? It’s a knife’s-edge of a question, such a precarious thing that more of their greater selves bleed through unbidden, but they silently agree not to. Besides, there’s still something the Dark wants to do; information running through hands, concept of limited time, fondness, sparkling eyes. Meanwhile, the voices outside are already descending to an uncertain murmur amongst themselves: Had the lights been inside the house, or behind it? Had they really heard music in the fast, unpolished rumble? Had they seen or heard anything at all?

The Light grips the Dark’s hand tighter for a moment, grins, and takes a breath.

“Well, there’s no footprints. No signs of a break-in—look at that!”

Murmuring and scuffing noises on the driveway.

“That was ball lightning. Swear to god, ball lightning. That’s rare.”

“Shit!”

A few seconds of silence drip by, measured in the raindrops still sliding from the shingles.

“Well, I guess that answers that. We came all the way out here for a little thunder and lightning.”

“But there’s no storms in the area I’ve heard of. No one else got any, just rain.”

Someone rattles the doorknob one last time. “Look, there’s nothing here. House is secure. Let’s go on back to the car...”

The deliberation moves down the driveway. It is decided that someone will drive by the house later on, maybe stay and keep watch if there’s nothing else to do. Car doors again. Tires hissing on wet gravel. The night closes around the house once more.

The bodies sit up very slowly.

-Stay here?- asks the Dark, taking advantage of the lowered barriers between them to speak directly.

-yes/no- Despite having answered in the same way, the Light frowns at the Dark. -spoiling the game. turn it off-

-Want use speech? Ears? Really?-

The Light tries several times, mouth working, before a passable, if squeaky, “y Es” plops out.

Heavy sighs come naturally to the Dark. -Miss you,- the Dark complains.

“On e  niG ht,” the Light says, beginning to smile.

-Yes.  Miss you.-

The Light reaches out and twines both arms around the Dark; hands find and cradle a skull, strum soft hair; the Light quivers when the Dark does the same in return. “Wh a t?” the Light asks, referring to the thing the Dark wanted to do. The Light has a pretty good idea, because the Light has been waiting for a chance to try it, too.

It’s a smile and a breath, this thing that some humans have begun to do, not as recently as wires inside houses, but not so far back that eternity has taken much notice. It’s a tilt of heads, like flowers following the sun, and the sun is the other’s face. They lean their foreheads together, pulses still hot from the dance; it’s a slow, delicate roll, and mouth finds mouth. Strange, so strange. Shivery touch. They have to learn teeth, learn pressure—not too much of either one—until nerves sing pleasure. Lips are so good at the illusion, so, so good at pretending that they touch for real, much better than hands, better than other kinds of touch they’ve tried before; and still the knowledge is there, made painfully sharp, even, that there are empty fields of static between everything capable of touching and feeling, but this touch, this touch is the one that promises that if it can only last long enough, if they can only press close enough and love hard enough, the two of them can become one.

The bodies are weak when they finally lean back, such a curious thing, so much more tremblingly vulnerable to time rolling heavily over them – they could do this forever, but they don’t have it. The humans will return; the dawn will break. Already a greasy golden line on the horizon sets an ache growing in the hollows of their eyes.

They climb the stairs slowly, to where there is a bed – they are familiar, at least, with the use of a bed, for sleeping is a most exciting game – pausing to kiss on the stairs. Again. And again. There will be more kissing the next time they play, it is decided. And at the top of the stairs, to sleep—only sleep? Speech bleeding away in anticipation of sleep, image of rolling raindrops, of rain-drenched irises in the garden nodding heavy purple heads that smell like licorice, golden light in the first window of the attic, a question?

The question is weighed, and the question is dropped, heavy as bodies into the welcoming billow of comforters. They ready their senses for the plunge into sleep, arms wrapped around bodies, touching-not-touching, closing the eyes and the ears and all the rest, one by one, alone, more alone. Once they have finished sleeping and concluded the game, the bodies will dissipate and leave nothing for the homeowners to find but silver dust in the sheets and a ghost of metal in the back of the throat.

But now, now they come to the reason that sleep is so exciting. They have found nothing else like dreaming—and perhaps they do not get it quite right, as those who dream regularly might tell them. Or perhaps they, being what they are, are able to know something that mortal dreamers only sometimes feel to be true—that dreaming is a place inhabited by all, beyond molecules, beyond plurality. As they retreat further into deadening flesh like nesting dolls, they dive toward it like desperate fish leaping from a ship’s deck—the water sparkling below them, and once they reach it, nothing will keep them apart, no barriers of flesh or time or difference. They never dream alone.

That would truly be asking the impossible.